Emergence of spatio-temporal dynamics from exact coherent solutions in pipe flow

Turbulent-laminar patterns are ubiquitous near transition in wall-bounded shear flows. Despite recent progress in describing their dynamics in analogy to non-equilibrium phase transitions, there is no theory explaining their emergence. Dynamical-system approaches suggest that invariant solutions to...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ritter, Paul, Mellibovsky Elstein, Fernando|||0000-0003-0497-9052, Àvila Cañellas, Marc
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/104197
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/104197
https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/8/083031
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Pipe--Fluid dynamics
Shear flow
Turbulence
Shear flow turbulence
Pipe flow transition: Dynamical systems
Spatio-temporal chaos
Turbulència
Hidrodinàmica
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Física de fluids
Descripción
Sumario:Turbulent-laminar patterns are ubiquitous near transition in wall-bounded shear flows. Despite recent progress in describing their dynamics in analogy to non-equilibrium phase transitions, there is no theory explaining their emergence. Dynamical-system approaches suggest that invariant solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations, such as traveling waves and relative periodic orbits in pipe flow, act as building blocks of the disordered dynamics. While recent studies have shown how transient chaos arises from such solutions, the ensuing dynamics lacks the strong fluctuations in size, shape and speed of the turbulent spots observed in experiments. We here show that chaotic spots with distinct dynamical and kinematic properties merge in phase space and give rise to the enhanced spatio-temporal patterns observed in pipe flow. This paves the way for a dynamical-system foundation to the phenomenology of turbulent-laminar patterns in wall-bounded extended shear flows.