An Informal Introduction to Turbulence

Book excerpt: To Turbulence by ARKADY TSINOBER Department of Fluid Mechanics, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW eBookISBN: 0-306-48384-X Print ISBN: 1-4020-0110-X ©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers NewYork, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print ©2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht All rights reserved No part of this eBook maybe reproducedor transmitted inanyform or byanymeans, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: http://kluweronline. com and Kluwer's eBookstoreat: http://ebooks. kluweronline. com TO My WITS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Brief history 1 1. 1 1. 2 Nature and major qualitative universal features of turbulent flows 2 1. 2. 1 Representative examples of turbulent flows 2 1. 2. 2 In lieu of definition: major qualitative universal f- tures of turbulent flows 15 1. 3 Why turbulence is so impossibly difficult? The three N's 19 On the Navier-Stokes equations 19 1. 3. 1 1. 3. 2 On the nature of the problem 21 1. 3. 3 Nonlinearity 22 1. 3. 4 Noninegrability 22 Nonlocality 1. 3. 5 23 1. 3. 6 On physics of turbulence 24 1. 3. 7 On statistical theories 24 1. 4 Outline of the following material 25 1. 5 In lieu of summary 26 2 ORIGINS OF TURBULENCE 27 2. 1 Instability 27 2. 2 Transition to turbulence versus routes to chaos 29 2.