On the self-sustained nature of large-scale motions in turbulent Couette flow

DOI10.1017/JFM.2015.550zbMATH Open1381.76098arXiv1509.04434OpenAlexW3099750345MaRDI QIDQ2807154FDOQ2807154

Subhandu Rawat, F. Rincon, C. Cossu, Yongyun Hwang

Publication date: 19 May 2016

Published in: Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Large-scale motions in wall-bounded turbulent flows are frequently interpreted as resulting from an aggregation process of smaller-scale structures. Here, we explore the alternative possibility that such large-scale motions are themselves self-sustained and do not draw their energy from smaller-scale turbulent motions activated in buffer layers. To this end, it is first shown that large-scale motions in turbulent Couette flow at Re=2150 self-sustain even when active processes at smaller scales are artificially quenched by increasing the Smagorinsky constant Cs in large eddy simulations. These results are in agreement with earlier results on pressure driven turbulent channels. We further investigate the nature of the large-scale coherent motions by computing upper and lower-branch nonlinear steady solutions of the filtered (LES) equations with a Newton-Krylov solver,and find that they are connected by a saddle-node bifurcation at large values of Cs. Upper branch solutions for the filtered large scale motions are computed for Reynolds numbers up to Re=2187 using specific paths in the Re-Cs parameter plane and compared to large-scale coherent motions. Continuation to Cs = 0 reveals that these large-scale steady solutions of the filtered equations are connected to the Nagata-Clever-Busse-Waleffe branch of steady solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations. In contrast, we find it impossible to connect the latter to buffer layer motions through a continuation to higher Reynolds numbers in minimal flow units.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.04434

zbMATH Keywords

nonlinear dynamical systemsturbulent flowstransition to turbulence

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Dynamical systems in fluid mechanics, oceanography and meteorology (37N10) Transition to turbulence (76F06) Dynamical systems approach to turbulence (76F20) Direct numerical and large eddy simulation of turbulence (76F65)

Cited In (22)

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• Energy production and self-sustained turbulence at the Kolmogorov scale in Couette flow
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• A vortex interaction mechanism for generating energy and enstrophy fluctuations in high-symmetric turbulence
• Attached eddy-like particle clustering in a turbulent boundary layer under net sedimentation conditions
• Self-similar invariant solution in the near-wall region of a turbulent boundary layer at asymptotically high Reynolds numbers
• Scale interactions in turbulent plane Couette flows in minimal domains
• Invariant solutions of minimal large-scale structures in turbulent channel flow for up to 1000
• A sparse optimal closure for a reduced-order model of wall-bounded turbulence
• Forcing statistics in resolvent analysis: application in minimal turbulent Couette flow
• Exact coherent structures in fully developed two-dimensional turbulence
• Two mechanisms of modulation of very-large-scale motions by inertial particles in open channel flow
• The state space and travelling-wave solutions in two-scale wall-bounded turbulence
• Onset of large-scale convection in wall-bounded turbulent shear flows
• Nonlinear optimal large-scale structures in turbulent channel flow
• A statistical state dynamics-based study of the structure and mechanism of large-scale motions in plane Poiseuille flow
• Exact coherent states of attached eddies in channel flow
• Turbulent spots in a channel: large-scale flow and self-sustainability
• Flow organization and heat transfer in turbulent wall sheared thermal convection
• A driving mechanism of near-wall turbulence subject to adverse pressure gradient in a plane Couette flow
• A self-sustaining process theory for uniform momentum zones and internal shear layers in high Reynolds number shear flows
• Vertically localised equilibrium solutions in large-eddy simulations of homogeneous shear flow

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