277 research outputs found
Ordered and chaotic vortex streets behind circular cylinders at low Reynolds numbers
We report some experiments undertaken to investigate the origin of ordered and chaotic laminar vortex streets behind circular cylinders at low Reynolds numbers. We made simultaneous measurements of near wake longitudinal velocity and cylinder lateral vibration amplitude spectra for cylinder Reynolds numbers in the range from 40 to 160. For a non-vibrating cylinder the velocity energy spectra contained only a single peak, at the Strouhal frequency. When the cylinder was observed to vibrate in response to forcing by the vortex wake, additional dominant spectral peaks appeared in the resulting ‘ordered’ velocity spectra. Cylinder vibrations too small to be noticed with the naked eye or from audible Aeolian tones produced a coupled wake-cylinder response with dramatic effects in hot-wire and cylinder vibration detector signals. The velocity spectra associated with these coupled motions had dominant peaks at the Strouhal frequency fs, at a frequency fc proportional to the fundamental cylinder vibration frequency, and at sum and difference combinations of multiples of fs and fc. In windows of chaos the velocity spectra were broadened by switching between different competing coupling modes. The velocity spectra were very sensitive to the nature of the boundary conditions at the ends of the cylinder. Our measurements strongly suggest that the very similar regions of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ observed by Sreenivasan and interpreted by him as transition through quasi-periodic states in the sense of the Ruelle, Takens, and Newhouse theory were also due to aeroelastic coupling of the vortex wake with cylinder vibration modes
Chaos in Shear Flows
Almost 25 years ago Lorenz published his seminal
study on the existence of a strange attractor in the phase
space of a severely truncated model system arising from
the hydrodynamical equations describing two-dimensional
convection. Nearly a century ago Poincare
published his famous treatise Les Methodes Noovelles
de la Mecaniaue Celeste (1892) in which the possible
complexity of behavior in nonintegrable, conservative
systems was first envisioned. Both these works address
an age old puzzle: How do apparently stochastic outputs
arise from an entirely deterministic system subject to
non-stochastic inputs
Geophysical turbulence data and turbulence theory
International audienceMany vital insights into the nature of turbulence in fluids have originated from experimental data obtained in geophysical flows. Geophysical data have often helped to stimulate the creation of new turbulence theory, while theory has in many cases motivated the experimental efforts. The present brief review discusses several key examples of this interaction between experiment and theory, citing mainly work which is of particular interest to the author. No attempt is made to provide a complete listing of the extensive and currently rapidly developing literature for some of the problems discussed
Charged particle radiation damage in semiconductors. Part 14 - Study of radiation effects in lithium doped silicon solar cells
Lithium doped silicon solar cells under electron irradiation and determination of semiconductor parameter
Computational Study of Turbulent-Laminar Patterns in Couette Flow
Turbulent-laminar patterns near transition are simulated in plane Couette
flow using an extension of the minimal flow unit methodology. Computational
domains are of minimal size in two directions but large in the third. The long
direction can be tilted at any prescribed angle to the streamwise direction.
Three types of patterned states are found and studied: periodic, localized, and
intermittent. These correspond closely to observations in large aspect ratio
experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Finite size scaling in the solar wind magnetic field energy density as seen by WIND
Statistical properties of the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations can provide an important insight into the solar wind turbulent cascade. Recently, analysis of the Probability Density Functions (PDF) of the velocity and magnetic field fluctuations has shown that these exhibit non-Gaussian properties on small time scales while large scale features appear to be uncorrelated. Here we apply the finite size scaling technique to explore the scaling of the magnetic field energy density fluctuations as seen by WIND. We find a single scaling sufficient to collapse the curves over the entire investigated range. The rescaled PDF follow a non Gaussian distribution with asymptotic behavior well described by the Gamma distribution arising from a finite range Lévy walk. Such mono scaling suggests that a Fokker-Planck approach can be applied to study the PDF dynamics. These results strongly suggest the existence of a common, nonlinear process on the time scale up to 26 hours
Non-Gaussian Distributions in Extended Dynamical Systems
We propose a novel mechanism for the origin of non-Gaussian tails in the
probability distribution functions (PDFs) of local variables in nonlinear,
diffusive, dynamical systems including passive scalars advected by chaotic
velocity fields. Intermittent fluctuations on appropriate time scales in the
amplitude of the (chaotic) noise can lead to exponential tails. We provide
numerical evidence for such behavior in deterministic, discrete-time passive
scalar models. Different possibilities for PDFs are also outlined.Comment: 12 pages and 6 figs obtainable from the authors, LaTex file,
OSU-preprint-
To what extent can dynamical models describe statistical features of turbulent flows?
Statistical features of "bursty" behaviour in charged and neutral fluid
turbulence, are compared to statistics of intermittent events in a GOY shell
model, and avalanches in different models of Self Organized Criticality (SOC).
It is found that inter-burst times show a power law distribution for turbulent
samples and for the shell model, a property which is shared only in a
particular case of the running sandpile model. The breakdown of self-similarity
generated by isolated events observed in the turbulent samples, is well
reproduced by the shell model, while it is absent in all SOC models considered.
On this base, we conclude that SOC models are not adequate to mimic fluid
turbulence, while the GOY shell model constitutes a better candidate to
describe the gross features of turbulence.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, in press on Europhys. Lett. (may 2002
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