Visibility graph analysis of wall turbulence time-series

Highlights: • We apply the visibility algorithm to analyze turbulent channel flow time-series. • Temporal structures of the series are inferred by the network global metrics. • Peaks and irregularities of time-series are highlighted by the visibility networks. • Different flow dynamics along the wall-normal direction are captured by the metrics. • This method represents a promising tool for inhomogeneous turbulent flows analyses. - Abstract: The spatio-temporal features of the velocity field of a fully-developed turbulent channel flow are investigated through the natural visibility graph (NVG) method, which is able to fully map the intrinsic structure of the time-series into complex networks. Time-series of the three velocity components, $(u,v,w)$, are analyzed at fixed grid-points of the whole three-dimensional domain. Each time-series was mapped into a network by means of the NVG algorithm, so that each network corresponds to a grid-point of the simulation. The degree centrality, the transitivity and the here proposed mean link-length were evaluated as indicators of the global visibility, inter-visibility, and mean temporal distance among nodes, respectively. The metrics were averaged along the directions of homogeneity ($x,z$) of the flow, so they only depend on the wall-normal coordinate, $y^{+}$. The visibility-based networks, inheriting the flow field features, unveil key temporal properties of the turbulent time-series and their changes moving along $y^{+}$. Although intrinsically simple to be implemented, the visibility graph-based approach offers a promising and effective support to the classical methods for accurate time-series analyses of inhomogeneous turbulent flows.