Pattern fluctuations in transitional plane Couette flow
arXiv:1101.2513 · doi:10.1007/s10955-011-0126-x
Abstract
In wide enough systems, plane Couette flow, the flow established between two parallel plates translating in opposite directions, displays alternatively turbulent and laminar oblique bands in a given range of Reynolds numbers R. We show that in periodic domains that contain a few bands, for given values of R and size, the orientation and the wavelength of this pattern can fluctuate in time. A procedure is defined to detect well-oriented episodes and to determine the statistics of their lifetimes. The latter turn out to be distributed according to exponentially decreasing laws. This statistics is interpreted in terms of an activated process described by a Langevin equation whose deterministic part is a standard Landau model for two interacting complex amplitudes whereas the noise arises from the turbulent background.
13 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in Journal of statistical physics
References in corpus (4)
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Cited by in corpus (9)
- On the decay of turbulence in plane Couette flow
- Ginzburg--Landau description of laminar-turbulent oblique band formation in transitional plane Couette flow
- Turbulent bifurcations in intermittent shear flows: from puffs to oblique stripes
- Laminar-turbulent patterning in wall-bounded shear flows: a Galerkin model
- Stochastic analysis of the time evolution of Laminar-Turbulent bands of plane Couette flow
- Mechanical and statistical study of the laminar hole formation in transitional plane Couette flow
- Turbulent spot growth in plane Couette flow: statistical study and formation of spanwise vorticity
- Finite size analysis of a double crossover in transitional wall turbulence
- Direct velocity measurement of a turbulent shear flow in a planar Couette cell