TY - JOUR
T1 - Large-Eddy Simulation of Titan's near-surface atmosphere
T2 - Convective turbulence and flow over dunes with application to Huygens and Dragonfly
AU - Lavely, Adam
AU - Lorenz, Ralph
AU - Schmitz, Sven
N1 - Funding Information:
AL and SS acknowledge support from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, United States of America (Dragonfly: PSU Phase A) as a subcontract to The Pennsylvania State University (Award 147577). RL acknowledges the partial support of this work by NASA, United States of America Grant NNX13AH14GS , as well as support from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, United States of America . Computations were made possible through support from Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS).
PY - 2021/3/15
Y1 - 2021/3/15
N2 - The planetary boundary layer (PBL) on Titan is modeled using large-eddy simulation (LES) to quantify the turbulence structures and statistics in the atmospheric surface layer. The results at three different stability states over a flat surface indicate similar velocity fluctuations to the limited observations taken by the Huygens probe during descent, and are much weaker than those characteristic of the convective PBL on Earth and Mars. Additionally, turbulence statistics are calculated using topographical configurations representative of Titan's dunes, thereby quantifying the acceleration of the mean flow over the dune crest. The resolution available with the LES is relevant for future science missions to Titan, including the Dragonfly rotorcraft lander recently selected for the NASA New Frontiers program.
AB - The planetary boundary layer (PBL) on Titan is modeled using large-eddy simulation (LES) to quantify the turbulence structures and statistics in the atmospheric surface layer. The results at three different stability states over a flat surface indicate similar velocity fluctuations to the limited observations taken by the Huygens probe during descent, and are much weaker than those characteristic of the convective PBL on Earth and Mars. Additionally, turbulence statistics are calculated using topographical configurations representative of Titan's dunes, thereby quantifying the acceleration of the mean flow over the dune crest. The resolution available with the LES is relevant for future science missions to Titan, including the Dragonfly rotorcraft lander recently selected for the NASA New Frontiers program.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114229
DO - 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114229
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097458860
VL - 357
JO - Icarus
JF - Icarus
SN - 0019-1035
M1 - 114229
ER -