---
OA_place: publisher
OA_type: hybrid
_id: '19729'
abstract:
- lang: eng
text: 'From anthropogenic litter carried by ocean currents to plant stems travelling
through the atmosphere, geophysical flows are often seeded with elongated, fibre-like
particles. In this study, we used a large-scale laboratory model of a tidal current
– representative of a widespread class of geophysical flows – to investigate the
tumbling motion of long, slender and floating fibres in the complex turbulence
generated by flow interactions with a tidal inlet. Despite the non-stationary,
non-homogeneous and anisotropic nature of this turbulence, we find that long fibres
statistically rotate at the same frequency as eddies of similar size, a phenomenon
called scale selection, which is known to occur in ideal turbulence. Furthermore,
we report that the signal of the instantaneous transverse velocity difference
between the fibre ends changes significantly from the signal produced by the flow
in the fibre surroundings, although the two are statistically equivalent. These
observations have twofold implications. On the one hand, they confirm the reliability
of using the end-to-end velocity signal of rigid fibres to probe the two-point
transverse statistics of the flow, even under realistic conditions: oceanographers
could exploit this observation to measure transverse velocity differences through
elongated floats in the field, where superdiffusion complicates collecting sufficient
data to probe two-point turbulence statistics at a fixed separation effectively.
On the other hand, by addressing the dynamics of inertial range particles floating
in the coastal zone, these observations are crucial to improving our ability to
predict the fate of meso- and macro-litter, a size class that is currently understudied.'
acknowledgement: A.S. expresses thanks for support from the Research Grants Council
of Hong Kong (project IDs 15216422 and C5032-22EF) and from the Research Institute
for Land and Space (RILS) (project ID P0049622). S.B. is funded by the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie
grant agreement (no.101034413).
article_number: A5
article_processing_charge: No
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Annalisa
full_name: De Leo, Annalisa
last_name: De Leo
- first_name: Stefano
full_name: Brizzolara, Stefano
id: 4bbe33b8-c59a-11ee-a1af-fa33d1ac42c4
last_name: Brizzolara
- first_name: Mattia
full_name: Cavaiola, Mattia
last_name: Cavaiola
- first_name: Junlin
full_name: He, Junlin
last_name: He
- first_name: Alessandro
full_name: Stocchino, Alessandro
last_name: Stocchino
citation:
ama: De Leo A, Brizzolara S, Cavaiola M, He J, Stocchino A. Rigid fibre transport
in a periodic non-homogeneous geophysical turbulent flow. Journal of Fluid
Mechanics. 2025;1011. doi:10.1017/jfm.2025.362
apa: De Leo, A., Brizzolara, S., Cavaiola, M., He, J., & Stocchino, A. (2025).
Rigid fibre transport in a periodic non-homogeneous geophysical turbulent flow.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2025.362
chicago: De Leo, Annalisa, Stefano Brizzolara, Mattia Cavaiola, Junlin He, and Alessandro
Stocchino. “Rigid Fibre Transport in a Periodic Non-Homogeneous Geophysical Turbulent
Flow.” Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Cambridge University Press, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2025.362.
ieee: A. De Leo, S. Brizzolara, M. Cavaiola, J. He, and A. Stocchino, “Rigid fibre
transport in a periodic non-homogeneous geophysical turbulent flow,” Journal
of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 1011. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
ista: De Leo A, Brizzolara S, Cavaiola M, He J, Stocchino A. 2025. Rigid fibre transport
in a periodic non-homogeneous geophysical turbulent flow. Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
1011, A5.
mla: De Leo, Annalisa, et al. “Rigid Fibre Transport in a Periodic Non-Homogeneous
Geophysical Turbulent Flow.” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 1011, A5,
Cambridge University Press, 2025, doi:10.1017/jfm.2025.362.
short: A. De Leo, S. Brizzolara, M. Cavaiola, J. He, A. Stocchino, Journal of Fluid
Mechanics 1011 (2025).
date_created: 2025-05-25T22:16:46Z
date_published: 2025-05-16T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2025-09-30T12:38:34Z
day: '16'
ddc:
- '530'
department:
- _id: BjHo
doi: 10.1017/jfm.2025.362
ec_funded: 1
external_id:
isi:
- '001489159700001'
file:
- access_level: open_access
checksum: f1b0f6a977fdf2d6eb9e16c11d030c0c
content_type: application/pdf
creator: dernst
date_created: 2025-05-28T08:12:07Z
date_updated: 2025-05-28T08:12:07Z
file_id: '19751'
file_name: 2025_JourFluidMech_DeLeo.pdf
file_size: 6415303
relation: main_file
success: 1
file_date_updated: 2025-05-28T08:12:07Z
has_accepted_license: '1'
intvolume: ' 1011'
isi: 1
language:
- iso: eng
month: '05'
oa: 1
oa_version: Published Version
project:
- _id: fc2ed2f7-9c52-11eb-aca3-c01059dda49c
call_identifier: H2020
grant_number: '101034413'
name: 'IST-BRIDGE: International postdoctoral program'
publication: Journal of Fluid Mechanics
publication_identifier:
eissn:
- 1469-7645
issn:
- 0022-1120
publication_status: published
publisher: Cambridge University Press
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Rigid fibre transport in a periodic non-homogeneous geophysical turbulent flow
tmp:
image: /images/cc_by.png
legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)
short: CC BY (4.0)
type: journal_article
user_id: 317138e5-6ab7-11ef-aa6d-ffef3953e345
volume: 1011
year: '2025'
...