Selection principles and pattern formation in fluid mechanics and nonlinear shell theory

Abstract

Wave theories of vortex breakdown were studied. A setting which involved dynamical systems and bifurcations of homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits in infinite-dimensional spaces was investigated. The determination of axisymmetric inviscid flows bifurcating from the primary flow lead to the study of a system of ordinary differential equations. The problem of rotating plane Couette flow was solved by means of the structure parameter approach.