Since the well-known experiments of Reynolds in 1883 on transition of laminar to turbulent flow in a cylindrical pipe this problem has been studied without success. The main reason for this failure is the fact that laminar pipe flow is found to be stable for infinitesimal perturbations. Therefore transition can only follow from finite perturbations. This requires a nonlinear theory which at the moment is not available.In an experiment described in [1] the transition process has been considered for cylindrical laminar pipe flow subjected to a non-axisymmetric, divergence-free disturbance. In the present investigation we aim to simulate this transition experimentnumerically with the objective to study the initial development of an imposed disturbance. This may shed some light on the mechanism which plays a role in the process of transition.
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