Travelling waves in pipe flow
Chaotic Dynamics
2009-11-10 v2 Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
A family of three-dimensional travelling waves for flow through a pipe of circular cross section is identified. The travelling waves are dominated by pairs of downstream vortices and streaks. They originate in saddle-node bifurcations at Reynolds numbers as low as 1250. All states are immediately unstable. Their dynamical significance is that they provide a skeleton for the formation of a chaotic saddle that can explain the intermittent transition to turbulence and the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in this shear flow.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.nlin/0304029,
title = {Travelling waves in pipe flow},
author = {H. Faisst and B. Eckhardt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0304029},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 5 figures