Numerical study of wake vortex decay and descent in homogeneous atmospheric turbulence

Numerical simulations are performed to isolate the effect of ambient turbulence on the wake vortex decay rate within a neutrally stratified atmosphere. Simulations are conducted for a range of turbulence intensities by injecting wake vortex pairs into an approximately homogeneous and isotropic turbulence field. Consistent with field observations, the decay rate of the vortex circulation increases clearly with increasing levels of ambient turbulence. Based on the results from the numerical simulations, simple decay models for the vortex pair are proposed as functions of nondimensional ambient turbulence intensity, nondimensional radial distance, and nondimensional time. For strong atmospheric turbulence, the model predictions are in reasonable agreement with the observational data. For weak turbulence with stable stratification, the model, based on turbulence dissipation alone, underestimates circulation decay with consistent overestimation of vortex descent, unless stratification effects are included.