1975/06/01 by Marten T. Landahl, Mårten T. Landahl · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Environmental Science · #Boundary layer #Classical mechanics #Disturbance (geology) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Geology #Instability #K-epsilon turbulence model #Mechanics #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Nonlinear system #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Shear (geology) #Shear flow #Turbulence #Wave turbulence
paper · doi:10.1137/0128061
crossref issued 1975/06/01 · crossref published 1975/06/01 · crossref published-print 1975/06/01 · openalex publication_date 1975/06/01 · crossref created 2005/02/23 · crossref deposited 2017/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Some new ideas on the dynamics of shear flow turbulence are presented. Central to these is the phenomenon of wave breakdown. This is defined as the onset of a violent small-scale secondary instability developing on a large-scale primary disturbance of wave-like traveling type. It is suggested that breakdown together with the ensuing violent mixing process (a turbulent “burst”) constitutes the dominant nonlinear mechanism for the fluctuating velocity field in a turbulent boundary layer. A burst regeneration mechanism is proposed whereby one breakdown can excite large velocity defects in the shear flow which then may trigger a new breakdown, thus leading to self-maintenance of the turbulence.