Tertiary solutions and their stability in rotating plane Couette flow

1998 ◽  
Vol 358 ◽  
pp. 357-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. NAGATA

The stability of nonlinear tertiary solutions in rotating plane Couette flow is examined numerically. It is found that the tertiary flows, which bifurcate from two-dimensional streamwise vortex flows, are stable within a certain range of the rotation rate when the Reynolds number is relatively small. The stability boundary is determined by perturbations which are subharmonic in the streamwise direction. As the Reynolds number is increased, the rotation range for the stable tertiary motions is destroyed gradually by oscillatory instabilities. We expect that the tertiary flow is overtaken by time-dependent motions for large Reynolds numbers. The results are compared with the recent experimental observation by Tillmark & Alfredsson (1996).

1994 ◽  
Vol 258 ◽  
pp. 131-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Duck ◽  
Gordon Erlebacher ◽  
M. Yousuff Hussaini

The linear stability of compressible plane Couette flow is investigated. The appropriate basic velocity and temperature distributions are perturbed by a small-amplitude normal-mode disturbance. The full small-amplitude disturbance equations are solved numerically at finite Reynolds numbers, and the inviscid limit of these equations is then investigated in some detail. It is found that instabilities can occur, although the corresponding growth rates are often quite small; the stability characteristics of the flow are quite different from unbounded flows. The effects of viscosity are also calculated, asymptotically, and shown to have a stabilizing role in all the cases investigated. Exceptional regimes to the problem occur when the wave speed of the disturbances approaches the velocity of either of the walls, and these regimes are also analysed in some detail. Finally, the effect of imposing radiation-type boundary conditions on the upper (moving) wall (in place of impermeability) is investigated, and shown to yield results common to both bounded and unbounded flows.


2018 ◽  
Vol 853 ◽  
pp. 205-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulio Facchini ◽  
Benjamin Favier ◽  
Patrice Le Gal ◽  
Meng Wang ◽  
Michael Le Bars

We present the stability analysis of a plane Couette flow which is stably stratified in the vertical direction orthogonal to the horizontal shear. Interest in such a flow comes from geophysical and astrophysical applications where background shear and vertical stable stratification commonly coexist. We perform the linear stability analysis of the flow in a domain which is periodic in the streamwise and vertical directions and confined in the cross-stream direction. The stability diagram is constructed as a function of the Reynolds number $Re$ and the Froude number $Fr$, which compares the importance of shear and stratification. We find that the flow becomes unstable when shear and stratification are of the same order (i.e. $Fr\sim 1$) and above a moderate value of the Reynolds number $Re\gtrsim 700$. The instability results from a wave resonance mechanism already known in the context of channel flows – for instance, unstratified plane Couette flow in the shallow-water approximation. The result is confirmed by fully nonlinear direct numerical simulations and, to the best of our knowledge, constitutes the first evidence of linear instability in a vertically stratified plane Couette flow. We also report the study of a laboratory flow generated by a transparent belt entrained by two vertical cylinders and immersed in a tank filled with salty water, linearly stratified in density. We observe the emergence of a robust spatio-temporal pattern close to the threshold values of $Fr$ and $Re$ indicated by linear analysis, and explore the accessible part of the stability diagram. With the support of numerical simulations we conclude that the observed pattern is a signature of the same instability predicted by the linear theory, although slightly modified due to streamwise confinement.


2019 ◽  
Vol 867 ◽  
pp. 414-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Pershin ◽  
Cédric Beaume ◽  
Steven M. Tobias

Unsteady spatially localized states such as puffs, slugs or spots play an important role in transition to turbulence. In plane Couette flow, steady versions of these states are found on two intertwined solution branches describing homoclinic snaking (Schneider et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 104, 2010, 104501). These branches can be used to generate a number of spatially localized initial conditions whose transition can be investigated. From the low Reynolds numbers where homoclinic snaking is first observed ($Re<175$) to transitional ones ($Re\approx 325$), these spatially localized states traverse various regimes where their relaminarization time and dynamics are affected by the dynamical structure of phase space. These regimes are reported and characterized in this paper for a $4\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}$-periodic domain in the streamwise direction as a function of the two remaining variables: the Reynolds number and the width of the localized pattern. Close to the snaking, localized states are attracted by spatially localized periodic orbits before relaminarizing. At larger values of the Reynolds number, the flow enters a chaotic transient of variable duration before relaminarizing. Very long chaotic transients ($t>10^{4}$) can be observed without difficulty for relatively low values of the Reynolds number ($Re\approx 250$).


1974 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Von Kerczek ◽  
Stephen H. Davis

The stability of the oscillatory Stokes layers is examined using two quasi-static linear theories and an integration of the full time-dependent linearized disturbance equations. The full theory predicts absolute stability within the investigated range and perhaps for all the Reynolds numbers. A given wavenumber disturbance of a Stokes layer is found to bemore stablethan that of the motionless state (zero Reynolds number). The quasi-static theories predict strong inflexional instabilities. The failure of the quasi-static theories is discussed.


The stability of plane Couette flow with a heated lower plate is considered with respect to a two-dimensional infinitesimal disturbance. The eigenvalues are found with the aid of a digital computer as the latent roots of a matrix. Neutral stability curves for various Prandtl numbers at Reynolds numbers up to 150 are obtained by a second method. It is found that the principle of the exchange of stabilities does not hold for this problem. With the aid of Squire’s transformation the conclusion is drawn that all fluids will become unstable at the same value of the Rayleigh number irrespective of whether shear is present or not.


1963 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Deardorff

The problem of the stability of plane Couette flow to infinitesimal disturbances is carried numerically to larger Reynolds numbers than heretofore. The flow is definitely stable up to R = 1430, although at Reynolds numbers in this vicinity plane Couette flow has been observed experimentally to be turbulent. Observations on boundary-layer instability suggest this to be the source of turbulence in plane Couette flow channels.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Shankar ◽  
I. S. Shivakumara

AbstractThis paper investigates the stability of an incompressible viscous fluid flow between relatively moving horizontal parallel plates in the presence of a uniform vertical throughflow. A linear stability analysis has been performed by employing the method of normal modes and the resulting stability equation is solved numerically using the Chebyshev collocation method. Contrary to the stability of plane Couette flow (PCF) to small disturbances for all values of the Reynolds number in the absence of vertical throughflow, it is found that PCF becomes unstable owing to the change in the sign of growth rate depending on the magnitude of throughflow. The critical Reynolds number triggering the instability is computed for different values of throughflow dependent Reynolds number and it is shown that throughflow instills both stabilizing and destabilizing effect on the base flow. It is seen that the direction of throughflow has no influence on the stability of fluid flow. A comparative study between plane Poiseuille flow and PCF has also been carried out and the similarities and differences are highlighted.


1969 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 685-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex D. D. Craik

The stability of plane Couette flow is examined for liquids in which the viscosity varies with depth. Under suitable conditions, the flow may be stable or unstable at small Reynolds numbers for disturbances with wavelengths long compared with the liquid depth.A mechanism which may be stabilizing or destabilizing is found to derive from the role of diffusion in the neighbourhood of a ‘critical layer’, where the liquid velocity equals the phase velocity of a wave-like disturbance. This mechanism, which requires a viscosity gradient, is quite distinct from that found by Yih (1967) for the case of a viscosity discontinuity. An example is considered, for which these two mechanisms may be of comparable importance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 751 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Avsarkisov ◽  
S. Hoyas ◽  
M. Oberlack ◽  
J. P. García-Galache

AbstractA new set of numerical simulations of turbulent plane Couette flow in a large box of dimension ($\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}20\pi h,\, 2h,\, 6\pi h$) at Reynolds number $(\mathit{Re}_{\tau }) =125$, 180, 250 and 550 is described and compared with simulations at lower Reynolds numbers, Poiseuille flows and experiments. The simulations present a logarithmic near-wall layer and are used to verify and revise previously known results. It is confirmed that the fluctuation intensities in the streamwise and spanwise directions do not scale well in wall units. The scaling failure occurs both near to and away from the wall. On the contrary, the wall-normal intensity scales in inner units in the near-wall region and in outer units in the core region. The spectral ridge found by Hoyas & Jiménez (Phys. Fluids, vol. 18, 2003, 011702) for the turbulent Poiseuille flow can also be seen in the present flow. Away from the wall, very large-scale motions are found spanning through all the length of the channel. The statistics of these simulations can be downloaded from the webpage of the Chair of Fluid Dynamics.


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