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Layer formation and relaminarisation in plane Couette flow with spanwise stratification

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Lucas, D 
Caulfield, CP 
Kerswell, RR 

Abstract

Recent research has shed light on the role of coherent structures in forming layers when stably stratified turbulence is forced with horizontal shear (Lucas, Caulfield & Kerswell, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 832, 2017, pp. 409-437). Here we extend our previous work to investigate the effect of rigid boundaries on the dynamics by studying stably-stratified plane Couette flow with gravity oriented in the spanwise direction. We observe near-wall layering and associated new mean flows in the form of large scale spanwise-flattened streamwise rolls. The layers exhibit the expected buoyancy scaling lzU/N where U is a typical horizontal velocity scale and N the buoyancy frequency. We associate the new coherent structures with a stratified modification of the well-known large scale secondary flow in plane Couette and find that the possibility of the transition to sustained turbulence is controlled by the relative size of this buoyancy scale to the spanwise spacing of the streaks. We also investigate the influence on the transition to turbulence of the newly discovered linear instability in this system (Facchini et. al. 2018 arXiv:1711.11312).

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Keywords

stratified turbulence, transition to turbulence

Journal Title

Journal of Fluid Mechanics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0022-1120
1469-7645

Volume Title

868

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K034529/1)
EPSRC
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