New scaling law for the decay exponent of bimolecular reactions in unbounded transitional flows.

We propose a new scaling law for global kinetics of the stoichiometric reaction A+B-->P in unsteady, transitional flows. We find in the nonlinear flow regime the decay as approximately t(-alpha) where alpha is related to a space-time scaling parameter psi as alpha proportional, variant psi(m), for the considered parameter range m=0.067. In the linear flow regime, we find that the maximum is alpha approximately 2/3 for psi approximately 1. The proposed scaling law should be useful for linking dynamical subgrid processes with reaction kinetics in a variety of transitional flow systems.

Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy for the A+B-->P reaction in transitional flows.

We study global decay of the bimolecular reaction A+B-->P as c(t) approximately t(-alpha) in a nonlinear transitional flow. A relationship is established between the decay exponent alpha, and a modified Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, hr. We find that for dynamic conditions which induce relatively strong mixing, the decay exponent is alpha is proportional to ln psi(-Bhr) with B being a characteristic reactive mix-down time for the system, and psi is a space-time scaling parameter. Dynamic conditions which imply weak mixing lead to a degenerate dependence of alpha on hr. The proposed relationship between alpha on hr should be a useful link between the dynamical evolution of the flow field and reaction kinetics in vortex dominated flows.