Lift-up and streak waviness drive the self-sustained process in wall-bounded transition to turbulence

Flow field measurements from a Couette-Poiseuille experiment are used to examine quantitatively certain steps of the self-sustained process (SSP) of wall-bounded transition to turbulence. Although the different parts of the SSP have been discussed at large in the literature, direct measurements from experiment are scarce and the present results show, using a local analysis of the turbulent patterns, that (1) the amplitude of streamwise rolls is related to streak waviness, bringing a quantitative picture to one of the main physical mechanisms of Waleffe’s model of SSP, and (2), at low waviness, direct measurements of the correlation between the streak and roll amplitudes, respectively probed by the streamwise and wall-normal velocity perturbations, quantify the lift-up effect. This analysis method of the SSP does not rely on the specificity of Couette-Poiseuille flows and can be used to investigate this mechanism in other flows.

T. Liu, B. Semin, R. Godoy-Diana, J. E. Wesfreid
Physical Review Fluids, 9, 033901 (2024).
doi: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.9.033901