The lift-up effect: the linear mechanism behind transition and turbulence in shear flows

Abstract

The formation and amplification of streamwise velocity perturbations induced by cross-stream disturbances is ubiquitous in shear flows. This disturbance growth mechanism, so neatly identified by Ellingsen and Palm in 1975, is a key process in transition to turbulence and self-sustained turbulence. In this review, we first present the original derivation and early studies and then discuss the non-modal growth of streaks, the result of the lift-up process, in transitional and turbulent shear flows. In the second part, the effects on the lift-up process of additives in the fluid and of a second phase are discussed and new results presented with emphasis on particle-laden shear flows. For all cases considered, we see the lift-up process to be a very robust process, always present as a first step in subcritical transition.