Saddle-node bifurcation during the relaminarization of turbulent puffs in pipe

Abstract

Turbulent puffs in a pipe persist for a long time before abruptly transitioning to laminar flow through viscous exponential decay. Direct numerical simulation results reveal a saddle-node bifurcation sequence governing the final relaminarization stage. Specifically, a universal square-root scaling law in the annihilation of critical points that is indicative of a saddle-node bifurcation. The Riccati equation has been proposed as a straightforward approach to modeling these bifurcations.