Research
Subcritical Transition to Turbulence in Taylor-Couette Flow
In shear flows, the transition to turbulence typically occurs through a subcritical bifurcation where a finite amplitude perturbation is required to take the system from the laminar state to a turbulent one. Some experiments suggest that the lifetime diverges at a finite Reynolds number; others suggest that the lifetime diverges only at infinite Reynolds number. We measure turbulent state lifetimes for the flow between concentric, rotating cylinders in the regime where the transition to turbulence is subcritical. Our study also allows us to test whether the transient nature of the turbulence observed in previous experiments is specific to those flow geometries or is present in a more general class of shear flows. We also investigate the effects of various boundary conditions and weak counter/co-rotation on the observed lifetimes.
Representative Publications
- D. Borrero-Echeverry, M.F. Schatz, and R. Tagg, "Transient turbulence in Taylor-Couette flow," Phys. Rev. E 81, 025301(R) (2010)
© 2013 Schatz Pattern Formation and Control Lab | Last updated: 12-10-2013