Symmetry Breaking Bifurcations and the Growth of Chaos in a Rotating Fluid

Abstract

Laboratory experiments and numerical simulation on flow between concentric independently rotating cylinders (the Couette-Taylor system) reveal a primary bifurcation to a new state, ribbons, which are traveling waves in the azimuthal direction but standing waves in the axial direction. Other experiments, conducted on a rigid rapidly rotating annulus, are designed to explore parameter regimes characteristics of planetary scale flows. Eastward jets are found to exhibit Rossby waves for a wide range of control parameters, and these jets (or, more precisely, the potential vorticity gradients in the core of the jets) act as a strong barrier to tracer transport; these observations have important implications for the transport of pollutants in oceans and the atmosphere. The behavior of westward jets is found to be markedly different from that of eastward jets. Keywords: Jupiter planet; Great red spot; Jet flow; Persistent vortices; Axisymmetric convection.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1989
Accession Number
ADA210969

Entities

People

  • Harry L. Swinney

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Complex Systems
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Convection
  • Couette Flow
  • Engineering
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Numerical Analysis
  • Physics
  • Physics Laboratories
  • Rossby Waves
  • Standing Waves
  • Steady State
  • Traveling Waves
  • Turbulence

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Coastal Oceanography
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.