Traveling waves in pipe flow.
A family of three-dimensional traveling waves for flow through a pipe of circular cross section is identified. The traveling waves are dominated by pairs of downstream vortices and streaks. They originate in saddle-node bifurcations at Reynolds numbers as low as 1250. All states are immediately unstable. Their dynamical significance is that they provide a skeleton for the formation of a chaotic saddle that can explain the intermittent transition to turbulence and the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in this shear flow.
Faisst
Holger
H
Fachbereich Physik, Philipps Universität Marburg, D-35032 Marburg, Germany. Holger.Faisst@physik.uni-marburg.de
Eckhardt
Bruno
B