Professor Bruno Eckhardt
University of Marburg (Currently on Sabbatical at University of Maryland)
"Transition to Turbulence in Pipe Flow"
ABSTRACT
Pipe flow belongs to the group of flows that do not show a linear
instability, yet become turbulent for sufficiently high flow speeds.
Building on experience in dynamical systems
we have proposed a scenario for the transition that involves
subcritical bifurcations to unstable travelling waves that form
a strange saddle.
Numerical and experimental evidence for this scenario will be presented.
BRIEF ACADEMIC/EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
MSc in Physics Georgia Tech (1982)
PhD in Physics, Universitaet Bremen (1986)
Postdoc in Juelich, Marburg, San Diego and Rehovot
Professor in Oldenburg 1992-1996
Professor in Marburg since 1996
Burgers Visiting Professor University of Maryland 2004/05
CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS
Nonlinear dynamics/dynamical systems
with few and many degrees of freedom, classical and quantum.
I have worked on quantum chaos, periodic orbit theory,
fully developed turbulence and transition to turbulence,
but fluid dynamics is taking more and more of my time
and interests.