Laminar channel flow driven by accelerating walls

Abstract

The two-dimensional flow of a viscous incompressible fluid in a channel with accelerating walls is analysed by use of Hiemenz's similarity solution. Steady flows and their instabilities are calculated, and unsteady flows are computed by solving the initial-value problem for the governing partial-differential system. Thereby, these exact solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations are found to exhibit turning points, pitchfork bifurcations, Hopf bifurcations and Takens–Bogdanov bifurcations along the route to chaos. The substantial physical result is that the chaos previously found for flows with symmetrically accelerating walls is easily destroyed by a little asymmetry.