2015/06/30 by Matthew Chantry, Laurette S. Tuckerman, Dwight Barkley · 38 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Boundary layer #Classical mechanics #Couette flow #Flow (mathematics) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Hagen–Poiseuille equation #Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes #Intermittency #K-epsilon turbulence model #Laminar flow #Laminar sublayer #Mechanics #Physics #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #Reynolds number #Shear flow #Shear stress #Turbulence #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/jfm.2016.92
published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics 791 (Cambridge University Press) · 13 pages, 9 figures
arxiv created 2016/02/17 · openalex publication_date 2016/02/24 · arxiv updated 2016/04/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
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 that again capture the turbulent–laminar structures seen in transition.