On the nature of laminar-turbulence intermittency in shear flows

Abstract

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 simulations of pipe flow we here argue that the spatial intermittency has its origin in a nearest neighbor interaction between turbulent regions. We further show that in this regime turbulent flows are intrinsically intermittent with a well defined equilibrium turbulent fraction but without ever assuming a steady pattern. This transition scenario is analogous to that found in simple models such as coupled map lattices. The scaling observed implies that laminar intermissions of the turbulent flow will persist to arbitrarily large Reynolds numbers.

References in corpus (3)

• Computational Study of Turbulent-Laminar Patterns in Couette Flow
• Scale invariance at the onset of turbulence in Couette flow
• Spatiotemporal perspective on the decay of turbulence in wall-bounded flows

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The rise of fully turbulent flow
• Inflow boundary conditions determine T-mixer efficiency
• On the transition to turbulence of wall-bounded flows in general, and plane Couette flow in particular
• Experimental approaches to universal out-of-equilibrium scaling laws: turbulent liquid crystal and other developments
• Patterns in transitional shear turbulence. Part 2: Emergence and optimal wavelength
• Streamwise decay of localized states in channel flow
• Directed percolation in aerodynamics: resolving laminar separation bubble on airfoils
• High dimensional tori and chaotic and intermittent transients in magnetohydrodynamic Couette flows
• Unidirectionally Coupled Map Lattices with Non-Linear Coupling: Unbinding Transitions and Super-Long Transients
• Discontinuous transition to shear flow turbulence