Related papers: Patterns in transitional shear turbulence. Part 2:…
Turbulent-laminar intermittency, typically in the form of bands and spots, is a ubiquitous feature of the route to turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows. Here we study the idealised shear between stress-free boundaries driven by a…
Laminar-turbulent pattern formation is a distinctive feature of the intermittency regime in subcritical plane shear flows. By performing extensive numerical simulations of the plane channel flow, we show that the pattern emerges from a…
In plane Couette flow, the incompressible fluid between two plane parallel walls is driven by the motion of those walls. The laminar solution, in which the streamwise velocity varies linearly in the wall-normal direction, is known to be…
Laboratory experiments point out the existence of patterns made of alternately laminar and turbulent oblique bands in plane Couette flow in its way to/from turbulence as the Reynolds number R is varied. Many previous theoretical and…
Turbulent-laminar patterns near transition are simulated in plane Couette flow using an extension of the minimal flow unit methodology. Computational domains are of minimal size in two directions but large in the third. The long direction…
In this essay, we recall the specificities of the transition to turbulence in wall-bounded flows and present recent achievements in the understanding of this problem. The transition is abrupt with laminar-turbulent coexistence over a finite…
Accurate prediction of the transition from laminar flow to turbulence remains an unresolved challenge despite its importance for understanding a variety of environmental, biological, and industrial phenomena. Well over a century of…
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…
The effects of global flow rotation and curvature on the subcritical transition to turbulence in shear flows are examined. The relevant time-scales of the problem are identified by a decomposition of the flow into a laminar and a deviation…
The onset of turbulence in laminar flow of viscous fluids is shown to be a consequence of the limited capacity of the fluid to withstand shear stress. This fact is exploited to predict the flow velocity at which laminar flow becomes…
The transitional boundary layer flow over a flat plate is investigated. The boundary layer flow is known to develop unstable Tollmien-Schlichting waves above a critical value of the Reynolds number. However, it is also known that this…
The transition of the flow in a duct of square cross-section is studied. Like in the similar case of the pipe flow, the motion is linearly stable for all Reynolds numbers; this flow is thus a good candidate to investigate the 'bypass' path…
Annular Couette flow is the flow between two coaxial cylinders driven by the axial translation of the inner cylinder. It is investigated using direct numerical simulation in long domains, with an emphasis on the laminar-turbulent…
The purpose of this contribution is to summarize and discuss recent advances regarding the onset of turbulence in shear flows. The absence of a clear cut instability mechanism, the spatio-temporal intermittent character and extremely long…
This paper is concerned with the transition of the laminar flow in a duct of square cross-section. Like in the similar case of the pipe flow, the motion is linearly stable for all Reynolds numbers, rendering this flow a suitable candidate…
We present a reduced model for the transition to turbulence in shear flow that is simple enough to admit a thorough numerical investigation while allowing spatio-temporal dynamics that are substantially more complex than those allowed in…
The precise set of parameters governing the transition to turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows remains an open question; many theoretical bounds have been obtained, but there is not yet a consensus between these bounds and…
The growth of laminar-turbulent band patterns in plane Couette flow is studied in the vicinity of the global stability threshold R_g below which laminar flow ultimately prevails. Appropriately tailored direct numerical simulations are…
We demonstrate an unexpected connection between isotropic turbulence and wall-bounded shear flows. We perform direct numerical simulations of isotropic turbulence forced at large scales at moderate Reynolds numbers and observe sudden…
We experimentally investigate the flow of a viscoelastic fluid in a parallel shear geometry at low Reynolds number. As the flow becomes unstable via a nonlinear subcritical instability, velocimetry measurements show non-periodic…