New observations in transient hydrodynamic perturbations. Frequency jumps, intermediate term and spot formation

TL;DR

This paper investigates complex frequency evolution in transient shear flows through long-term simulations, revealing jumps and intermediate asymptotics that relate to spot formation and propagation speeds in wall flows.

Contribution

It uncovers the existence of an intermediate asymptotic stage in transient shear flows and links structured long transients to spot patterns in subcritical wall flow transition.

Findings

Identification of frequency jumps during transients

Existence of an intermediate asymptotic stage

Relation of long transients to spot pattern formation

Abstract

Sheared incompressible flows are usually considered non-dispersive media. As a consequence, the frequency evolution in transients has received much less attention than the wave energy density or growth factor. By carrying out a large number of long term transient simulations for longitudinal, oblique and orthogonal perturbations in the plane channel and wake flows, we could observe a complex time evolution of the frequency. The complexity is mainly associated to jumps which appear quite far along within the transients. We interpret these jumps as the transition between the early transient and the beginning of an intermediate term that reveals itself for times large enough for the influence of the fine details of the initial condition to disappear. The intermediate term leads to the asymptotic exponential state and has a duration one order of magnitude longer than the early term, which indicates the existence of an intermediate asymptotics. Since after the intermediate term perturbations die out or blowup, the mid-term can be considered as the most probable state in the perturbation life. Long structured transients can be related to the spot patterns commonly observed in subcritical transitional wall flows. By considering a large group of 3D waves in a narrow range of wavenumbers, we superposed them in a finite temporal window with oblique and longitudinal waves randomly delayed with respect to an orthogonal wave which is supposed to sustain the spot formation with its intense transient growth. We show that in this way it is possible to recover the linear initial evolution of the pattern characterized by the presence of longitudinal streaks. We also determined the asymptotic frequency and phase speed wavenumber spectra for the channel and wake flows. The mild dispersion observed can in part explain the different propagation speeds of the backward and forward fronts of the spot.