Issue |
EPL
Volume 98, Number 6, June 2012
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 64003 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/98/64003 | |
Published online | 22 June 2012 |
Three-dimensionality in quasi–two-dimensional flows: Recirculations and Barrel effects
Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University - Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK, EU
a
alban.potherat@grenoble-inp.org
Received:
13
April
2012
Accepted:
25
May
2012
A scenario is put forward for the appearance of three-dimensionality both in quasi-2D rotating flows and quasi-2D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows. We show that 3D recirculating flows and currents originate in wall boundary layers and that, unlike in ordinary hydrodynamic flows, they cannot be ignited by confinement alone. They also induce a second form of three-dimensionality with quadratic variations of velocities and current across the channel. This scenario explains both the common tendency of these flows to two-dimensionality and the mechanisms of the recirculations through a single formal analogy covering a wide class of flows including rotating and MHD flows. These trans-disciplinary effects are thus active in atmospheres, oceans or the cooling blankets of nuclear fusion reactors.
PACS: 47.32.-y – Vortex dynamics; rotating fluids / 47.65.-d – Magnetohydrodynamics and electrohydrodynamics / 47.27.nd – Channel flow
© EPLA, 2012
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