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By using the Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique we observe the secondary flow of second kind in a corner of a channel of square cross-section. The boundary layer thickness is much lower than the channel size. Therefore, the flow is still developing, not filling the entire channel cross-section, which is the case more widely reported in literature studied in a very long channel. The non-linear secondary effects of interacting boundary layers are observed as a single stream-wise vortex close to the channel corner in case of laminar boundary layers. In the case of turbulent boundary layers, the secondary flow takes shape of a symmetric pair of counter-rotating vortices. This pattern is observable only in the average velocity field, while the instantaneous ones display large amount of vortices, whose spatial distribution close to the corner in dependence on their orientation leads to statistically emergent net vorticity. At the same time, this pattern is reproduced by using a numerical simulation. • Secondary flow of second kind in a short channel observed by Stereo PIV • For R e L ≤ 1. 0 ⋅ 1 0 5 , the secondary flow is laminar in shape of single vortex in the corner. • The size of laminar secondary flow vortex decreases with R e L as R ∼ R e L − 1 ∕ 2 . • At R e L ≥ 1. 3 ⋅ 1 0 5 , a pair of counter-rotating vortices appears in the averaged sense. • This pattern develops also in a "steady-state" numerical simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vortex merging is a basic fluid phenomenon which has been much studied for two-dimensional flows. Here we extend such a study to a specific class of three-dimensional flows, namely to vortices possessing a helical symmetry. In addition to the standard Reynolds number, this introduces another dimensionless control number, the pitch, which quantifies the periodicity length along the helix axis. Helical vortices with large pitches merge very much as in a two-dimensional setting. However, their rotation speed is reduced and the merging period is delayed. These effects, caused by the presence of a self-induced velocity in curved three-dimensional vortices, are understood by computing the streamfunction in the frame of reference rotating with the two vortices, and by inspecting the locations of its hyperbolic points. At intermediate pitch values, only viscous diffusion acts, resulting in a slow viscous type of merging. Finally for small pitches, the system is unstable resulting, at the nonlinear stage, in a different type of merging which breaks the initial central symmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]