The minimal speeds (c) of the KolmogorovPetrovskyPiskunov (KPP) fronts at small diffusion ( 1) in a class of time-periodic cellular flows with chaotic streamlines is investigated in this paper. The variational principle of c reduces the computation to that of a principle eigenvalue problem on a periodic domain of a linear advectiondiffusion operator with spacetime periodic coefficients and small diffusion. To solve the advection dominated time-dependent eigenvalue problem efficiently over large time, a combination of spectral methods and finite element, as well as the associated fast solvers, are utilized to accelerate computation. In contrast to the scaling c= O ( 1/4) in steady cellular flows, a new relation c= O (1) as 1 is revealed in the time-periodic cellular flows due to the presence of chaotic streamlines. Residual propagation speed emerges from the Lagrangian chaos which is quantified as a sub

We study homogenization of the G-equation with a flow straining term (or the strain G-equation) in two dimensional periodic cellular flow. The strain G-equation is a highly non-coercive and non-convex level set HamiltonJacobi equation. The main objective is to investigate how the flow induced straining (the nonconvex term) influences front propagation as the flow intensity <i>A</i> increases. Three distinct regimes are identified. When <i>A</i> is below the critical level, homogenization holds and the turbulent flame speed <i>s</i> _T (effective Hamiltonian) is well-defined for any periodic flow with small divergence and is enhanced by the cellular flow as <i>s</i> _T <i>O</i>(<i>A</i>/log <i>A</i>). In the second regime where <i>A</i> is slightly above the critical value, homogenization breaks down, and <i>s</i> _T is not well-defined along any direction. Solutions become a mixture of a fast moving part and a stagnant part. When <i>A</i> is

The bifurcations of penetrative Rayleigh-Benard convection in cylindrical containers are studied by the linear stability analysis (LSA) combined with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) method. The working fluid is cold water near 4 degrees C, where the Prandtl number Pr is 11.57, and the aspect ratio (radius/height) of the cylinder ranges from 0.66 to 2. It is found that the critical Rayleigh number increases with the increase in the density inversion parameter (m). The relationship between the normalized critical Rayleigh number (Ra-c((m))/Ra-c(0)) and (m) is formulated, which is in good agreement with the stability results within a large range of (m). The aspect ratio has a minor effect on Ra-c((m))/Ra-c(0). The bifurcation processes based on the axisymmetric solutions are also investigated. The results show that the onset of axisymmetric convection occurs through a trans-critical bifurcation due to the top-bottom symmetry breaking of the present system. Moreover, two kinds of qualitatively different steady axisymmetric solutions are identified.

The paper aims to estimate the thickness of the boundary layer for the planar MHD system with vanishing shear viscosity . Under some conditions on the initial and boundary data, we show that the thickness is of the order | In |. Note that this estimate holds also for the Navier-Stokes system so that it extends the previous works even without the magnetic effect.

We study the two-point correlation function of a freely decaying scalar in Kraichnan's model of advection by a Gaussian random velocity field that is stationary and white noise in time, but fractional Brownian in space with roughness exponent 0&lt;<i></i>&lt;2, appropriate to the inertial-convective range of the scalar. We find all self-similar solutions by transforming the scaling equation to Kummer's equation. It is shown that only those scaling solutions with scalar energy decay exponent <i>a</i>(<i>d</i>/<i></i>)+1 are statistically realizable, where <i>d</i> is space dimension and <i></i>=2<i></i>. An infinite sequence of invariants <i>J</i> _p, <i>p</i>=0,1,2,..., is pointed out, where <i>J</i> ₀ is Corrsin's integral invariant but the higher invariants appear to be new. We show that at least one of the invariants <i>J</i> ₀ or <i>J</i> ₁ must be nonzero (possibly infinite) for realizable initial data. Initial datum with a finite, nonzero invariantthe first being <i>J</i> _pconverges at long times to a scaling