2009/05/31 by Daniel Borrero-Echeverry, Randall Tagg, Michael F. Schatz · 73 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Couette flow #Flow (mathematics) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Laminar flow #Mechanics #Open-channel flow #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Reynolds number #Statistical physics #Taylor–Couette flow #Turbulence #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.81.025301
published in Physical Review E 81(2), 025301 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 4 figures v2: Addressed referee comments for PRE. Made some cosmetic changes. Added inset to Fig. 4
arxiv created 2009/08/03 · openalex publication_date 2010/02/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent studies have brought into question the view that at sufficiently high Reynolds number turbulence is an asymptotic state. We present direct observation of the decay of turbulent states in Taylor-Couette flow with lifetimes spanning five orders of magnitude. We also show that there is a regime where Taylor-Couette flow shares many of the decay characteristics observed in other shear flows, including Poisson statistics and the coexistence of laminar and turbulent patches. Our data suggest that for a range of Reynolds numbers characteristic decay times increase superexponentially with increasing Reynolds number but remain bounded in agreement with the most recent data from pipe flow. Our data are also consistent with recent theoretical predictions of lifetime scaling in transitional flows.