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Hysteretic gravity-wave bifurcation in a highly turbulent swirling flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2006

NICOLÁS MUJICA
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, IREAP and IPST, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Avenida Blanco Encalada 2008, Santiago, Chile
DANIEL P. LATHROP
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, IREAP and IPST, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

Abstract

We report on experimental observations of a gravity-wave instability forced by a highly turbulent free-surface Taylor–Couette flow. Bistability and hysteresis are observed at the bifurcation from a turbulent base state, with an axisymmetric mean flow, to a turbulent gravity-wave state, with an azimuthal $m\,{=}\,1$ pattern related to the mean flow and free surface. We show that the critical Reynolds number at which the wave state appears is not sharply defined as it depends on turbulent fluctuations.

Type
Papers
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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