Scaling of the Turbulence Transition Threshold in a Pipe

2003/06/26 by Björn Hof, B. Hof, Anne Juel +2 · 6 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Amplitude #Combustion and flame dynamics #Condensed matter physics #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Geometry #Mathematics #Mechanics #Perturbation (astronomy) #Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics) #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Quantum mechanics #Scaling #Scaling law #Statistical physics #Turbulence #cond-mat

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.91.244502

4 pages, RevTex (submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.)

arxiv created 2003/06/26 · openalex publication_date 2003/12/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We report the results of an experimental investigation of the transition to turbulence in a pipe over approximately an order of magnitude range in the Reynolds number Re. A novel scaling law is uncovered using a systematic experimental procedure which permits contact to be made with modern theoretical thinking. The principal result we uncover is a scaling law which indicates that the amplitude of perturbation required to cause transition scales as O(Re-1).

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