Recurrent motions within plane Couette turbulence

Abstract

The phenomenon of bursting, in which streaks in turbulent boundary layers oscillate and then eject low speed fluid away from the wall, has been studied experimentally, theoretically, and computationally for more than 50 years because of its importance to the three-dimensional structure of turbulent boundary layers. We produce five new three-dimensional solutions of turbulent plane Couette flow, one of which is periodic while four others are relative periodic. Each of these five solutions demonstrates the break-up and re-formation of near-wall coherent structures. Four of our solutions are periodic but with drifts in the streamwise direction. More surprisingly, two of our solutions are periodic but with drifts in the spanwise direction, a possibility that does not seem to have been considered in the literature. We argue that a considerable part of the streakiness observed experimentally in the near-wall region could be due to spanwise drifts that accompany the break-up and re-formation of coherent structures. We also compute a new periodic solution of plane Couette flow that could be related to transition to turbulence.