2013/06/18 by Marc Avila, Björn Hof · 1 citation
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Boundary layer #Classical mechanics #Flow separation #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Intermittency #K-epsilon turbulence model #Laminar flow #Laminar sublayer #Mechanics #Open-channel flow #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Reynolds number #Statistical physics #Turbulence #Wind and Air Flow Studies #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.87.063012
published as Physical Review E 87(6), 063012 (2013)
openalex publication_date 2013/06/18 · arxiv created 2013/06/25 · arxiv updated 2014/10/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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 argue here 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.