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Updated: May 18, 2026

Measurements of Local Instantaneous Convective Heat Transfer in a Pipe - Single and Two-phase Flow
Published on: April 30, 2018
Edge state in pipe flow experiments
A de Lozar1, F Mellibovsky, M Avila
1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37073 Göttingen, Germany. adelozar@googlemail.com
Abstract:
Recent numerical studies suggest that in pipe and related shear flows, the region of phase space separating laminar from turbulent motion is organized by a chaotic attractor, called an edge state, which mediates the transition process. We here confirm the existence of the edge state in laboratory experiments. We observe that it governs the dynamics during the decay of turbulence underlining its potential relevance for turbulence control. In addition we unveil two unstable traveling wave solutions underlying the experimental flow fields. This observation corroborates earlier suggestions that unstable solutions organize turbulence and its stability border.
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