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Amplification of deterministic disturbances in inertialess shear-driven channel flows of viscoelastic fluids is examined by analysing the frequency responses from spatio-temporal body forces to the velocity and polymer stress fluctuations. In strongly elastic flows, we show that disturbances with large streamwise length scales may be significantly amplified even in the absence of inertia. For fluctuations without streamwise variations, we derive explicit analytical expressions for the dependence of the worst-case amplification (from different forcing to different velocity and polymer stress components) on the Weissenberg number ( $\\mathit{We}$ ), the maximum extensibility of the polymer chains ( $L$ ), the viscosity ratio and the spanwise wavenumber. For the Oldroyd-B model, the amplification of the most energetic components of velocity and polymer stress fields scales as ${\\mathit{We}}^{2} $ and ${\\mathit{We}}^{4} $ . On the other hand, the finite extensibility of polymer molecules limits the largest achievable amplification even in flows with infinitely large Weissenberg numbers: in the presence of wall-normal and spanwise forces, the amplification of the streamwise velocity and polymer stress fluctuations is bounded by quadratic and quartic functions of $L$ . This high amplification signals low robustness to modelling imperfections of inertialess channel flows of viscoelastic fluids. The underlying physical mechanism involves interactions of polymer stress fluctuations with a base shear, and it represents a close analogue of the lift-up mechanism that initiates a bypass transition in inertial flows of Newtonian fluids.

This study builds on and confirms the theoretical findings of Part 1 of this paper (Moarref & Jovanović, J. Fluid Mech., 2010, doi:10.1017/S0022112010003393). We use direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations to assess the efficacy of blowing and suction in the form of streamwise travelling waves for controlling the onset of turbulence in a channel flow. We highlight the effects of the modified base flow on the dynamics of velocity fluctuations and net power balance. Our simulations verify the theoretical predictions of Part 1 that the upstream travelling waves promote turbulence even when the uncontrolled flow stays laminar. On the other hand, the downstream travelling waves with parameters selected in Part 1 are capable of reducing the fluctuations' kinetic energy, thereby maintaining the laminar flow. In flows driven by a fixed pressure gradient, a positive net efficiency as large as 25 % relative to the uncontrolled turbulent flow can be achieved with downstream waves. Furthermore, we show that these waves can also relaminarize fully developed turbulent flows at low Reynolds numbers. We conclude that the theory developed in Part 1 for the linearized flow equations with uncertainty has considerable ability to predict full-scale phenomena.

Transition to turbulence represents one of the most intriguing natural phenomena. Flows that are smooth and ordered may become complex and disordered as the flow strength increases. This process is known as transition to turbulence. In this dissertation, we develop theoretical and computational tools for analysis and control of transition and turbulence in shear flows of Newtonian, such as air and water, and complex viscoelastic fluids, such as polymers and molten plastics. Part I of the dissertation is devoted to the design and verification of sensor-free and feedback-based strategies for controlling the onset of turbulence in channel flows of Newtonian fluids. We use high fidelity simulations of the nonlinear flow dynamics to demonstrate the effectiveness of our model-based approach to flow control design. In Part II, we utilize systems theoretic tools to study transition and turbulence in channel flows of viscoelastic fluids. For flows with strong elastic forces, we demonstrate that flow fluctuations can experience significant amplification even in the absence of inertia. We use our theoretical developments to uncover the underlying physical mechanism that leads to this high amplification. For turbulent flows with polymer additives, we develop a model-based method for analyzing the influence of polymers on drag reduction. We demonstrate that our approach predicts drag reducing trends observed in full-scale numerical simulations. In Part III, we develop mathematical framework and computational tools for calculating frequency responses of spatially distributed systems. Using state-of-the-art automatic spectral collocation techniques and new integral formulation, we show that our approach yields more reliable and accurate solutions than currently available methods.

We develop mathematical framework and computational tools for calculating frequency responses of linear time-invariant PDEs in which an independent spatial variable belongs to a compact interval. In conventional studies this computation is done numerically using spatial discretization of differential operators in the evolution equation. In this paper, we introduce an alternative method that avoids the need for finite-dimensional approximation of the underlying operators in the evolution model. This method recasts the frequency response operator as a two point boundary value problem and uses state-of-the-art automatic spectral collocation techniques for solving integral representations of the resulting boundary value problems with accuracy comparable to machine precision. Our approach has two advantages over currently available schemes: first, it avoids numerical instabilities encountered in systems with differential operators of high order and, second, it alleviates difficulty in implementing boundary conditions. We provide examples from Newtonian and viscoelastic fluid dynamics to illustrate utility of the proposed method.

Amplification of deterministic disturbances in inertialess shear-driven channel flows of viscoelastic fluids is examined by analyzing the frequency responses from spatio-temporal body forces to the velocity and polymer stress fluctuations. In strongly elastic flows, we show that disturbances with large streamwise length scales may be significantly amplified even in the absence of inertia. For fluctuations without streamwise variations, we derive explicit analytical expressions for the dependence of the worst-case amplification (from different forcing to different velocity and polymer stress components) on the Weissenberg number (\\(We\\)), the maximum extensibility of the polymer chains (\\(L\\)), the viscosity ratio, and the spanwise wavenumber. For the Oldroyd-B model, the amplification of the most energetic components of velocity and polymer stress fields scales as \\(We^2\\) and \\(We^4\\). On the other hand, finite extensibility of polymer molecules limits the largest achievable amplification even in flows with infinitely large Weissenberg numbers: in the presence of wall-normal and spanwise forces the amplification of the streamwise velocity and polymer stress fluctuations is bounded by quadratic and quartic functions of \\(L\\). This high amplification signals low robustness to modeling imperfections of inertialess channel flows of viscoelastic fluids. The underlying physical mechanism involves interactions of polymer stress fluctuations with a base shear, and it represents a close analog of the lift-up mechanism that initiates a bypass transition in inertial flows of Newtonian fluids.

This paper demonstrates the maintenance of self-sustaining turbulence in a restricted nonlinear (RNL) model of plane Couette flow. The RNL system is derived directly from the Navier Stokes equations and permits computationally tractable studies of the dynamical system obtained using stochastic structural stability theory (S3T), which is a second order approximation of the statistical state dynamics of the flow. The RNL model shares the dynamical restrictions of the S3T model but can be easily implemented through reducing a DNS code to the equations governing the RNL system. Comparisons of turbulence arising from DNS and RNL simulations demonstrate that the RNL system supports self-sustaining turbulence with a mean flow as well as structural and dynamical features that are consistent with DNS. These results demonstrate that the simplified RNL/S3T system captures fundamental aspects of fully developed turbulence in wall-bounded shear flows and motivates use of the RNL/S3T system for further study of wall turbulence.

This work builds on and confirms the theoretical findings of Part 1 of this paper, Moarref & Jovanović (2010). We use direct numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations to assess the efficacy of blowing and suction in the form of streamwise traveling waves for controlling the onset of turbulence in a channel flow. We highlight the effects of the modified base flow on the dynamics of velocity fluctuations and net power balance. Our simulations verify the theoretical predictions of Part 1 that the upstream traveling waves promote turbulence even when the uncontrolled flow stays laminar. On the other hand, the downstream traveling waves with parameters selected in Part 1 are capable of reducing the fluctuations' kinetic energy, thereby maintaining the laminar flow. In flows driven by a fixed pressure gradient, a positive net efficiency as large as 25 % relative to the uncontrolled turbulent flow can be achieved with downstream waves. Furthermore, we show that these waves can also relaminarize fully developed turbulent flows at low Reynolds numbers. We conclude that the theory developed in Part 1 for the linearized flow equations with uncertainty has considerable ability to predict full-scale phenomena.