Lyapunov stability analysis of the chaotic flow past two square cylinders

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Sahu, Sidhartha, Papadakis, George
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Sahu, Sidhartha
Papadakis, George
author_facet Sahu, Sidhartha
Papadakis, George
contents We investigate the stability of the flow past two side-by-side square cylinders (at Reynolds number 200 and gap ratio 1) using tools from dynamical systems theory. The flow is highly irregular due to the complex interaction between the flapping jet emanating from the gap and the vortices shed in the wake. We first perform Spectral Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (SPOD) to understand the flow characteristics. We then conduct Lyapunov stability analysis by linearizing the Navier-Stokes equations around the irregular base flow and find that it has two positive Lyapunov exponents. The Covariant Lyapunov Vectors (CLVs) are also computed. Contours of the time-averaged CLVs reveal that the footprint of the leading CLV is in the near-wake, whereas the other CLVs peak further downstream, indicating distinct regions of instability. SPOD of the two unstable CLVs is then employed to extract the dominant coherent structures and oscillation frequencies in the tangent space. For the leading CLV, the two dominant frequencies match closely with the prevalent frequencies in the drag coefficient spectrum, and correspond to instabilities due to vortex shedding and jet-flapping. The second unstable CLV captures the subharmonic instability of the shedding frequency. Global linear stability analysis (GLSA) of the time-averaged flow identifies a neutral eigenmode that resembles the leading SPOD mode of the first CLV, with a very similar structure and frequency. However, while GLSA predicts neutrality, Lyapunov analysis reveals that this direction is unstable, exposing the inherent limitations of the GLSA when applied to chaotic flows.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_05892
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Lyapunov stability analysis of the chaotic flow past two square cylinders
Sahu, Sidhartha
Papadakis, George
Fluid Dynamics
Chaotic Dynamics
We investigate the stability of the flow past two side-by-side square cylinders (at Reynolds number 200 and gap ratio 1) using tools from dynamical systems theory. The flow is highly irregular due to the complex interaction between the flapping jet emanating from the gap and the vortices shed in the wake. We first perform Spectral Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (SPOD) to understand the flow characteristics. We then conduct Lyapunov stability analysis by linearizing the Navier-Stokes equations around the irregular base flow and find that it has two positive Lyapunov exponents. The Covariant Lyapunov Vectors (CLVs) are also computed. Contours of the time-averaged CLVs reveal that the footprint of the leading CLV is in the near-wake, whereas the other CLVs peak further downstream, indicating distinct regions of instability. SPOD of the two unstable CLVs is then employed to extract the dominant coherent structures and oscillation frequencies in the tangent space. For the leading CLV, the two dominant frequencies match closely with the prevalent frequencies in the drag coefficient spectrum, and correspond to instabilities due to vortex shedding and jet-flapping. The second unstable CLV captures the subharmonic instability of the shedding frequency. Global linear stability analysis (GLSA) of the time-averaged flow identifies a neutral eigenmode that resembles the leading SPOD mode of the first CLV, with a very similar structure and frequency. However, while GLSA predicts neutrality, Lyapunov analysis reveals that this direction is unstable, exposing the inherent limitations of the GLSA when applied to chaotic flows.
title Lyapunov stability analysis of the chaotic flow past two square cylinders
topic Fluid Dynamics
Chaotic Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05892