Related papers: Sudden relaminarisation and lifetimes in forced is…
The onset of shear flow turbulence is characterized by turbulent patches bounded by regions of laminar flow. At low Reynolds numbers localized turbulence relaminarises, raising the question of whether it is transient in nature or it becomes…
In linearly stable shear flows turbulence spontaneously decays with a characteristic lifetime that varies with Reynolds number. The lifetime sharply increases with Reynolds number so that a possible divergence marking the transition to…
In pipe, channel and boundary layer flows turbulence first occurs intermittently in space and time: at moderate Reynolds numbers domains of disordered turbulent motion are separated by quiescent laminar regions. Based on direct numerical…
Low Reynolds number turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows \emph{en route} to laminar flow takes the form of oblique, spatially-intermittent turbulent structures. In plane Couette flow, these emerge from uniform turbulence via a…
Using a reduced model focusing on the in-plane dependence of plane Couette flow, it is shown that the turbulent-to-laminar relaxation process can be understood as a nucleation problem similar to that occurring at a thermodynamic first-order…
Contrasting with free shear flows presenting velocity profiles with inflection points which cascade to turbulence in a relatively mild way, wall bounded flows are deprived of (inertial) instability modes at low Reynolds numbers and become…
We analyze the properties of a 19 dimensional Galerkin approximation to a parallel shear flow. The laminar flow with a sinusoidal shape is stable for all Reynolds numbers Re. For sufficiently large Re additional stationary flows occur; they…
We find actual evidence, relying upon vorticity time series taken in a high Reynolds number atmospheric experiment, that to a very good approximation the surface boundary layer flow may be described, in a statistical sense and under certain…
Recent studies have brought into question the view that at sufficiently high Reynolds number turbulence is an asymptotic state. We present the first direct observation of the decay of turbulent states in Taylor-Couette flow with lifetimes…
A central obstacle to understanding the route to turbulence in wall-bounded flows is that the flows are composed of complex, highly fluctuating, and strongly nonlinear states. In the case of pipe flow, models have deepened our understanding…
The transition to turbulence exhibits remarkable spatio-temporal behavior that continues to defy detailed understanding. Near the onset to turbulence in pipes, transient turbulent regions decay either directly or, at higher Reynolds numbers…
Most flows in nature and engineering are turbulent because of their large velocities and spatial scales. Laboratory experiments of rotating quasi-Keplerian flows, for which the angular velocity decreases radially but the angular momentum…
Abrupt transition to turbulence may occur in pipe and channel flows at moderate flow rates, an unexpected event according to linear stability theory, and has been an open problem in fluid dynamics for more than a century. Extensive…
Intermittent turbulent-laminar patterns characterize the transition to turbulence in pipe, plane Couette and plane channel flows. The time evolution of turbulent-laminar bands in plane channel flow is studied via direct numerical…
Recent work demonstrated that alternative models to the "no-slip" boundary condition for incipient flow perturbations can produce linear instabilities that do not arise in the classical formulation. The present study introduces a Robin-type…
We study laminar, transitional and turbulent flow in wavy pipes using direct numerical simulations for bulk Reynolds numbers between 1-5300. Flow behaviors are analyzed in terms of the friction factor f and mean velocity statistics for…
In wall-bounded flows, the laminar regime remain linearly stable up to large values of the Reynolds number while competing with nonlinear turbulent solutions issued from finite amplitude perturbations. The transition to turbulence of plane…
The experiments by Darbyshire and Mullin (J. Fluid Mech. 289, 83 (1995)) on the transition to turbulence in pipe flow show that there is no sharp border between initial conditions that trigger turbulence and those that do not. We here…
Low Reynolds number turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows en route to laminar flow takes the form of spatially intermittent turbulent structures. In plane shear flows, these appear as a regular pattern of alternating turbulent and…
A system of simplified equations is proposed to govern the feedback interactions of large-scale flows present in laminar-turbulent patterns of transitional wall-bounded flows, with small-scale Reynolds stresses generated by the…