Experimental investigation of the transition in pipe flow

In this work, an experimental investigation of the transition process in water pipe flow is carried out in water. The objective is to use flow visualization and pressure measurements to carefully follow the sequence of transitional events while gradually varying the disturbance level from a laminar state to a fully developed turbulent state. This is accomplished by injecting artificial disturbances perpendicular to the main flow, which is approximately fully developed. With increasing levels of injection the friction factor increases along with changes in the nature of the resulting flow structures.