The chaotic time oscillations in an incompressible fluid driven into motion by a harmonic time-varying pressure gradient is examined.
Special attention is given to centrifugal destabilization of the viscous boundary layer.
The basic flow is shown to be linearly unstable. For increasing modulation amplitude, the flow exhibits chaotic oscillations. The energy exchange between subharmonics and superharmonics of the least-stable spanwise wave number is considered. The presence of subharmonic Fourier modes are shown to accelerate the transition to temporally chaotic motion. The scattering of acoustic waves from three-dimensional compressible fluid scatterers is considered.