The dynamics of transition to turbulence in plane Couette flow

In plane Couette flow, the incompressible fluid between two plane parallel walls is driven by the motion of those walls. The laminar solution, in which the streamwise velocity varies linearly in the wall-normal direction, is known to be linearly stable at all Reynolds numbers ($Re$). Yet, in both experiments and computations, turbulence is observed for $Re \gtrsim 360$. In this article, we show that for certain {\it threshold} perturbations of the laminar flow, the flow approaches either steady or traveling wave solutions. These solutions exhibit some aspects of turbulence but are not fully turbulent even at $Re=4000$. However, these solutions are linearly unstable and flows that evolve along their unstable directions become fully turbulent. The solution approached by a threshold perturbation could depend upon the nature of the perturbation. Surprisingly, the positive eigenvalue that corresponds to one family of solutions decreases in magnitude with increasing $Re$, with the rate of decrease given by $Re^{\alpha}$ with $\alpha \approx -0.46$

The critical layer in pipe flow at high Reynolds number

We report the computation of a family of traveling wave solutions of pipe flow up to $Re=75000$. As in all lower-branch solutions, streaks and rolls feature prominently in these solutions. For large $Re$, these solutions develop a critical layer away from the wall. Although the solutions are linearly unstable, the two unstable eigenvalues approach 0 as $Re\to\infty$ at rates given by $Re^{-0.41}$ and $Re^{-0.87}$ -- surprisingly, the solutions become more stable as the flow becomes less viscous. The formation of the critical layer and other aspects of the $Re\to\infty$ limit could be universal to lower-branch solutions of shear flows. We give implementation details of the GMRES-hookstep and Arnoldi iterations used for computing these solutions and their spectra, while pointing out the new aspects of our method

Stable manifolds and homoclinic points near resonances in the restricted three-body problem

The restricted three-body problem describes the motion of a massless particle under the influence of two primaries of masses $1-\mu$ and $\mu$ that circle each other with period equal to $2\pi$. For small $\mu$, a resonant periodic motion of the massless particle in the rotating frame can be described by relatively prime integers $p$ and $q$, if its period around the heavier primary is approximately $2\pi p/q$, and by its approximate eccentricity $e$. We give a method for the formal development of the stable and unstable manifolds associated with these resonant motions. We prove the validity of this formal development and the existence of homoclinic points in the resonant region. In the study of the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, the separatrices of the averaged equations of the restricted three-body problem are commonly used to derive analytical approximations to the boundaries of the resonances. We use the unaveraged equations to find values of asteroid eccentricity below which these approximations will not hold for the Kirkwood gaps with $q/p$ equal to 2/1, 7/3, 5/2, 3/1, and 4/1. Another application is to the existence of asymmetric librations in the exterior resonances. We give values of asteroid eccentricity below which asymmetric librations will not exist for the 1/7, 1/6, 1/5, 1/4, 1/3, and 1/2 resonances for any $\mu$ however small. But if the eccentricity exceeds these thresholds, asymmetric librations will exist for $\mu$ small enough in the unaveraged restricted three-body problem

Travelling-waves consistent with turbulence-driven secondary flow in a square duct

We present numerically determined travelling-wave solutions for pressure-driven flow through a straight duct with a square cross-section. This family of solutions represents typical coherent structures (a staggered array of counter-rotating streamwise vortices and an associated low-speed streak) on each wall. Their streamwise average flow in the cross-sectional plane corresponds to an eight vortex pattern much alike the secondary flow found in the turbulent regime