What do you do when the theory doesn’t fit what you observe? Clara Velte, who is affiliated with DTU Construct, has the answer to that question.
“Even whilst I was working on my master’s degree, I began to question the prevailing fundamental theory of turbulence. I simply couldn’t make it fit the experiments I was conducting, so when I started my PhD, I set out to formulate a new theory in collaboration with, among others, my supervisor at the time,” explains Clara Velte.
To do so is a big task and not something you can just do in a day. And to really understand why it is groundbreaking, we need to delve into the fundamental theory. But first, we need to understand what turbulence is.
“Turbulence is chaotic or sudden vortices that occur in liquids and gases. When an airplane encounters turbulence in the air, the air vortices constantly push the airplane slightly off course, and that is what passengers experience as shaking,” explains Clara Velte.
The outdated theory posits that the vortices that make up turbulence develop from large to small, and that the smaller vortices are no longer influenced by the larger ones. But according to Clara Velte’s research, all the vortices in the turbulence continue to influence one another.
New theory, new research opportunities
Clara Velte has devoted a part of her doctoral thesis to a re-evaluation of all the concepts and anomalies that originally led her to question the old theory.
“Based on the governing equations and fundamental symmetries, I have been able to explain these classical concepts and anomalies, and now everything fits with the reassessed theory. So now, for my colleagues and me, it is a matter of building on what we now know about turbulence. Because with a better theory comes better prediction of, for example, turbulence in air and water,” she explains.
Better prediction of air turbulence could lead to safer travel, but the new knowledge can also be used to predict the movement of blood in our bodies. The possibilities are many.
