Seminar: Aspects of the flow in curved pipes

Date & Time: Thursday, 01.02.2024, at 1400.

Speaker: Philipp Schlatter

Topic: “Aspects of the flow in curved pipes”

Introduction: Curved pipes are probably more the rule than the exception; many studies have focused on the properties of straight pipes, e.g. related to stability, transition and turbulence. However, even small amounts of curvature affect the mean flow, i.e. so-called Dean vortices appear. This new base flow will change e.g. the stability properties (a flow in a bent pipe is always unstable as we will show), transition is affected (there is an interesting interaction between modal and non-modal instability), and finally even turbulence properties change (one can even find a region of sublaminar drag). In this talk, we will try to summarise some of the recent findings in our study of bent pipes, hopefully appealing for both engineering and physical audiences.