Pattern fluctuations in transitional plane Couette flow (Q628684)

This paper reports results from numerical simulations of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in case of plane Couette flow. A range of Reynolds numbers is studied where the transition to turbulence happens by generating spatio-temporal patterns in form of oblique bands. These bands alternate between turbulent and laminar flows, and the orientation and the wavelength of this pattern fluctuates in time. This dynamics is quantified by a procedure that detects well-oriented episodes by determining the statistics of their lifetimes. The measured statistics is modeled by transforming a noisy Ginzburg-Landau model into a Landau-Langevin equation. This equation is discussed both analytically, and lifetimes are computed by solving it numerically.