Turbulence appearance and non-appearance in thin fluid layers

Abstract

Flows in fluid layers are ubiquitous in industry, geophysics and astrophysics. Large-scale flows in thin layers can be considered two-dimensional (2d) with bottom friction added. Here we find that the properties of such flows depend dramatically on the way they are driven. We argue that wall-driven (Couette) flow cannot sustain turbulence at however small viscosity and friction. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) up to the Reynolds number $Re=10^6$ confirm that all perturbations die in a plane Couette flow. On the contrary, for sufficiently small viscosity and friction, we show that finite perturbations destroy the pressure-driven laminar (Poiseuille) flow. What appears instead is a traveling wave in the form of a jet slithering between wall vortices. For $10^4<Re<5\cdot10^4$, the mean flow has remarkably simple structure: the jet is sinusoidal with a parabolic velocity profile, vorticity is constant inside vortices, while the fluctuations are small. At higher $Re$ strong fluctuations appear, yet the mean traveling wave survives. Considering the momentum flux barrier in such a flow, we derive a new scaling law for the $Re$-dependence of the friction factor and confirm it by DNS.