2016/08/31 by Jose M. Lopez, Marc Avila
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Angular momentum #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Flow (mathematics) #Fluid dynamics and aerodynamics studies #K-epsilon turbulence model #K-omega turbulence model #Laminar flow #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #Reynolds decomposition #Reynolds number #Reynolds stress equation model #Turbulence #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/jfm.2017.109
published as J. Fluid Mech., 817:21-34, 2017 · 16 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
openalex created_date 2016/09/16 · arxiv created 2017/02/23 · openalex publication_date 2017/03/15 · arxiv updated 2017/11/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Most flows in nature and engineering are turbulent because of their large velocities and spatial scales. Laboratory experiments on rotating quasi-Keplerian flows, for which the angular velocity decreases radially but the angular momentum increases, are however laminar at Reynolds numbers exceeding one million. This is in apparent contradiction to direct numerical simulations showing that in these experiments turbulence transition is triggered by the axial boundaries. We here show numerically that as the Reynolds number increases, turbulence becomes progressively confined to the boundary layers and the flow in the bulk fully relaminarizes. Our findings support that turbulence is unlikely to occur in isothermal constant-density quasi-Keplerian flows.