  The decay of scalar variance in isotropic turbulence in a bounded domain is
investigated. Extending the study of Touil, Bertoglio and Shao (2002; Journal
of Turbulence, 03, 49) to the case of a passive scalar, the effect of the
finite size of the domain on the lengthscales of turbulent eddies and scalar
structures is studied by truncating the infrared range of the wavenumber
spectra. Analytical arguments based on a simple model for the spectral
distributions show that the decay exponent for the variance of scalar
fluctuations is proportional to the ratio of the Kolmogorov constant to the
Corrsin-Obukhov constant. This result is verified by closure calculations in
which the Corrsin-Obukhov constant is artificially varied. Large-eddy
simulations provide support to the results and give an estimation of the value
of the decay exponent and of the scalar to velocity time scale ratio.
