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Register a new userLaminar-turbulent patterning in wall-bounded shear flows: a Galerkin model
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On its way to turbulence, plane Couette flow - the flow between counter-translating parallel plates - displays a puzzling steady oblique laminar-turbulent pattern. We approach this problem via Galerkin modelling of the Navier-Stokes equations. The wall-normal dependence of the hydrodynamic field is treated by means of expansions on functional bases fitting the boundary conditions exactly. This yields a set of partial differential equations for the spatiotemporal dynamics in the plane of the flow. Truncating this set beyond lowest nontrivial order is numerically shown to produce the expected pattern, therefore improving over what was obtained at cruder effective wall-normal resolution. Perspectives opened by the approach are discussed.
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Wall-bounded flows experience a transition to turbulence characterized by the coexistence of laminar and turbulent domains in some range of Reynolds number R, the natural control parameter. This transitional regime takes place between an upper threshold Rt above which turbulence is uniform (featureless) and a lower threshold Rg below which any form of turbulence decays, possibly at the end of overlong chaotic transients. The most emblematic cases of flow along flat plates transiting to/from turbulence according to this scenario are reviewed. The coexistence is generally in the form of bands, alternatively laminar and turbulent, and oriented obliquely with respect to the general flow direction. The final decay of the bands at Rg points to the relevance of directed percolation and criticality in the sense of statistical-physics phase transitions. The nature of the transition at Rt where bands form is still somewhat mysterious and does not easily fit the scheme holding for pattern-forming instabilities at increasing control parameter on a laminar background. In contrast, the bands arise at Rt out of a uniform turbulent background at a decreasing control parameter. Ingredients of a possible theory of laminar-turbulent patterning are discussed.
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 sinusoidal body force and demonstrate quantitative agreement between turbulence in this flow and that found in the interior of plane Couette flow -- the region excluding the boundary layers. Exploiting the absence of boundary layers, we construct a model flow that uses only four Fourier modes in the shear direction and yet robustly captures the range of spatiotemporal phenomena observed in transition, from spot growth to turbulent bands and uniform turbulence. The model substantially reduces the cost of simulating intermittent turbulent structures while maintaining the essential physics and a direct connection to the Navier-Stokes equations. We demonstrate the generic nature of this process by introducing stress-free equivalent flows for plane Poiseuille and pipe flows which again capture the turbulent-laminar structures seen in transition.
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 self-sustainment process of turbulence itself modeled using an extension of Waleffes approach (Phys. Fluids 9 (1997) 883-900), the detailed expression of which is displayed as an annex to the main text.
Despite recent progress, laminar-turbulent coexistence in transitional planar wall-bounded shear flows is still not well understood. Contrasting with the processes by which chaotic flow inside turbulent patches is sustained at the local (minimal flow unit) scale, the mechanisms controlling the obliqueness of laminar-turbulent interfaces typically observed all along the coexistence range are still mysterious. An extension of Waleffes approach [Phys. Fluids 9 (1997) 883--900] is used to show that, already at the local scale, drift flows breaking the problems spanwise symmetry are generated just by slightly detuning the modes involved in the self-sustainment process. This opens perspectives for theorizing the formation of laminar-turbulent patterns.
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 range of Reynolds numbers, the transitional range. The archetypical cases of Poiseuille pipe flow and plane Couette flow are first reviewed at the phenomenological level, together with a few other flow configurations. Theoretical approaches are then examined with particular emphasis on the existence of special nontrivial solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations at finite distance from laminar flow. Dynamical systems theory is most appropriate to analyze their role, in particular with respect to the transient character of turbulence in the lower transitional range. The extensions needed to deal with the prominent spatiotemporal features of the transition are then discussed. Turbulence growth/decay in terms of statistical physics of many-body systems and the relevance of directed percolation as a stochastic process able to account for it are next scrutinized. To conclude, we advocate the recourse to well-designed modeling able to provide us with a conceptually coherent picture of the full transitional range and put forward some open issues.
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