Stability And Transition To Chaos In The Spherical Couette Flow With Counter Rotating Boundaries

Transition to chaos in Spherical Couette flow was experimentally investigated by velocity pulsation measurements. The stability curve was obtained in a wide range of control parameters: 0 < Rei < 1000, −1200 < Reo < 800. The laminar‐turbulent transitions have been studied near the local maximum at the stability curve at Reo = −810 (−700 < Re2 < −950). This transition was found to occur throw four bifurcations at the right of the maximum and throw five at the left. Spectra of all supercritical flow regimes are formed from the frequencies, corresponding to three revealed flow space structures. The transition always occur from one‐frequency regime, which structure is symmetric with respect to the equator and include three vortex tubes in each hemisphere. The symmetry‐breaking bifurcation has a considerable hysteresis. The coordinates were found, where the relative frequencies of the supercritical regimes (i.e. the frequencies divided by the frequency of rotation of the outer boundary) don’t depend on the Reo.