Abstract:
The word „turbulence‟ is most commonly encountered during an in-flight announcement urging
passengers to fasten seat-belts, in anticipation of unsteadiness due to the large scale turbulent motion in
the atmosphere. However, turbulent flows are ubiquitous over a wide range of technologically relevant
scenarios including energy, transportation and weather prediction. When the inertia associated with a
fluid flow becomes much larger than the frictional forces due to viscosity (the ratio UL/ is the Reynolds
number), the smooth laminar flow transitions to turbulence (Reynolds, 1895) characterized by unsteady,
multi-scaled, chaotic (Gollub & Swinney 1975, Maurer & Libchaber 1979) and rotational flow. This
transition can often be observed in a faucet.
