Transitional pipe flow

1 Objectives
1. Perform direct numerical simulations of transitional pipe flow
(Re = 2000 − 5000).
2. From the numerical simulations identify puffs, slugs and patches
flow structures.
3. Compare flow characteristics of puffs, slugs and patches such
as: propagation velocities, time structure appear in the flow
(lifetime) and size.
4. With a procedure to compute ensemble averages compare flow
structure of puffs, slugs and patches

2 Results

1
Figure 1: Color contours of instantaneous streamwise velocity in a
z-r plane. From top to bottom shows five successive snapshots.

2
Figure 2: Color contours of instantaneous streamwise vorticity in a
z-r plane. From top to bottom shows five successive snapshots.

3
Figure 3: Color contours of instantaneous stramwise velocity with
superimposed inplane velocity vectors in a cross stream r-θ plane.
From last snapshot in figure 1, the cross sections are taken at z =
(10, 20, 25, 40).

4
Figure 4: Color contours of instantaneous stramwise vorticity cross
stream r-θ plane. From third snapshot in figure 1, the cross sections
are taken at z = (36, 45, 50, 60).

5
Figure 5: Streamwise velocity as a function of axial position at the
center-line of the pipe for three successive snapshots.

6
3 Comments
The simulation started to show transitional characteristics with what
appears to be a puff. The snapshots shown in figure 1 correspond
to times to t = 192 − 224, since for a fluid particle to travel the
pipe length would take 100 time units, these realizations are for the
second cycle of the simulation. The ”puff” show an abrupt jump
upstream from a laminar region to turbulent in a short space, while
the transition downstream from turbulent to laminar is more gradual
taking longer space. The centerline velocity as function streamwise
position in figure 5 clearly shows the typical leading and trailing
transition of puffs as shown experimentally with the trace of veloc-
ity at the centerline [Nishi et al., 2008, Shan et al., 1999].
The vorticity color contours in figure 5 show that in the trailing
edge of the puff, the streamwise vorticity appear at the walls of walls,
while downstream near the center of the pipe. Numerical simulations
of transitional pipe flow by Avila et al. [2011] show similar structure
for puffs.

7
References
Kerstin Avila, David Moxey, Alberto de Lozar, Marc Avila, Dwight
Barkley, and Björn Hof. The onset of turbulence in pipe flow.
Science, 333(6039):192–196, 2011.
Mina Nishi, Bülent Ünsal, Franz Durst, and Gautam Biswas.
Laminar-to-turbulent transition of pipe flows through puffs and
slugs. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 614:425–446, 2008.
H Shan, B Ma, Z Zhang, and FTM Nieuwstadt. Direct numerical
simulation of a puff and a slug in transitional cylindrical pipe flow.
Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 387:39–60, 1999.