Related papers: Identifying efficient routes to laminarization: an…
The nonlinear robustness of laminar plane Couette flow is considered under the action of in-phase spanwise wall oscillations by computing properties of the edge of chaos, i.e., the boundary of its basin of attraction. Three measures are…
In many plasma systems, introducing a small background shear flow is enough to stabilize the system linearly. The nonlinear dynamics are much less sensitive to sheared flows than the average linear growthrates, and very small amplitude…
We propose a general strategy for determining the minimal finite amplitude isturbance to trigger transition to turbulence in shear flows. This involves constructing a variational problem that searches over all disturbances of fixed initial…
In the past two decades, our understanding of the transition to turbulence in shear flows with linearly stable laminar solutions has greatly improved. Regarding the susceptibility of the laminar flow, two concepts have been particularly…
In this work, nonlinear variational optimization is used for obtaining minimal seeds for the formation of turbulent bands in channel flow. Using nonlinear optimization together with energy bisection, we have found that the minimal energy…
This study investigates the minimal seed for laminar-to-turbulent transition in a supersonic boundary layer at $M=3.0$ and $Re=300$ using adjoint-based nonlinear non-modal analysis. While linear theory identifies oblique waves as the…
Subcritical transition to turbulence in spatially developing boundary layer flows can be triggered efficiently by finite amplitude perturbations. In this work, we employ adjoint-based optimization to identify optimal initial perturbations…
Linear transient growth analysis is commonly used to suggest the structure of disturbances which are particularly efficient in triggering transition to turbulence in shear flows. We demonstrate that the addition of nonlinearity to the…
Recent experimental observations (Kuehnen et al., 2018) have shown that flattening a turbulent streamwise velocity profile in pipe flow destabilises the turbulence so that the flow relaminarises. We show that a similar phenomenon exists for…
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…
It is well known that buoyancy suppresses, and can even laminarise turbulence in upward heated pipe flow. Heat transfer seriously deteriorates in this case. Through a new DNS model, we confirm that the deteriorated heat transfer within…
Lower-branch traveling waves and equilibria computed in pipe flow and other shear flows appear intermediate between turbulent and laminar motions. We take a step towards connecting these lower-branch solutions to transition by deriving a…
Transition to turbulence dramatically alters the properties of fluid flows. In most canonical shear flows, the laminar flow is linearly stable and a finite-amplitude perturbation is necessary to trigger transition. Controlling transition to…
The problems of nonlinearity and high dimension have so far prevented a complete solution of the control of turbulent flow. Addressing the problem of nonlinearity, we propose a flow control strategy which ensures that the energy of any…
Minimal seeds, the smallest amplitude perturbations that trigger transition to turbulence, are presented in the Stokes boundary layer, the oscillating flow of a viscous fluid above a flat plate. The minimal seed trajectories are dominated…
Two approaches to the problem of transition to turbulence of shear flows are popular in the literature. The first is the linear one of transient growth which focuses on the likely form of the most 'dangerous' (lowest energy)…
We identify `minimal seeds' for turbulence, i.e. initial conditions of the smallest possible total perturbation energy density $E_c$ that trigger turbulence from the laminar state, in stably stratified plane Couette flow using the…
The transition to turbulence in flows where the laminar profile is linearly stable requires perturbations of finite amplitude. "Optimal" perturbations are distinguished as extrema of certain functionals, and different functionals give…
Recent works have established the utility of sparsity-promoting norms for extracting spatially-localized instability mechanisms in fluid flows, with possible implications for flow control. However, these prior works have focused on linear…
A variational formulation incorporating the full Navier-Stokes equations is used to identify initial perturbations with finite kinetic energy E_{0} which generate the largest gain in perturbation kinetic energy (across all possible time…