Plane Couette flow, the flow between two parallel plates moving in opposite directions, belongs to the group of shear flows where turbulence occurs while the laminar profile is stable. Experimental and numerical studies show that at intermediate Reynolds numbers turbulence is transient and that the lifetimes are distributed exponentially. However, these studies have remained inconclusive about a divergence in lifetimes above a critical Reynolds number. The extensive numerical results for flow in a box of width 2π and length 8π presented here cover observation times up to $12000$ units and show that while the lifetimes increase rapidly with Reynolds number, they do not indicate a divergence and therefore no transition to persistent turbulence.

• Received 25 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.81.015301