Edge states in a boundary layer

Stefania Cherubini (1, 2) , Pietro de Palma (2) , Jean-Christophe Robinet (1) , Alessandro Bottaro (3)

1 DynFluid - Laboratoire de Dynamique des Fluides
2 DIMEG - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale
3 DICAT - DICAT

The understanding of laminar-turbulent transition in shear flows has recently progressed along new paradigms based on the central role of nonlinear exact coherent states. We follow such paradigms to identify, for the first time in a spatially developing flow, localized flow structures living on the edge of chaos, which are the precursors of turbulence. These coherent structures are constituted by hairpin vortices and streamwise streaks. The results reported here extend the dynamical systems description of transition to spatially developing flows.

Mots clés: non-linear dynamical systems; boundary-layer instability; transition to turbulence

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Stefania Cherubini, Pietro de Palma, Jean-Christophe Robinet, Alessandro Bottaro. Edge states in a boundary layer. Physics of Fluids, 2011, 23 (051705), pp.4. ⟨10.1063/1.3589842⟩. ⟨hal-00799788⟩