John F. Gibson Center for Nonlinear Science Georgia Institute of Technology

Explanation of plane Couette visualizations

[movie of plane couette flow]

The picture above shows plane Couette flow in a rectangular box of size [Lx, Ly, Lz] with solid walls on the top and bottom (y = -Ly/2 and Ly/2). The top wall and the upper half of the fluid are cut away to show what happens inside.

The walls slide at constant speeds in opposite directions along x, as indicated by the arrows: the top wall slides towards the back of the box, the bottom towards the front.

The color in the picture above indicates the speed of the fluid in the direction of the moving walls. Red indicates fluid being dragged away from the viewer by the top wall; blue, towards.



emacs tag: Last modified: Mon Dec 3 00:12:13 IST 2007
subversion tag: $Author: gibson $ - $Date: 2007-12-08 12:29:19 +0530 (Sat, 08 Dec 2007) $