A more rigorous proof is given of the validity of a generalized Prandtl—Glauert technique for caculating the solution to time-dependent small perturbation flows. The method, first used by Miles (1950a) for the airfoil problem and later applied by Amiet & Sears (1970) to more general problems, allows calculation of the term of first order in frequency. Anomalous behaviour for the two-dimensional problem is examined in detail and found to be limited to those two-dimensional cases which include shed vorticity downstream of the body. This anomaly, which precludes using the method for these cases, results from the need to satisfy a velocity boundary condition on the body. For this purpose the velocity must be calculated from the basic variable, the pressure, through an integrated form of the momentum equation. It is in thus calculating the velocity that the anomaly occurs. The method can be applied to both the two-dimensional case without shed vorticity and the general three-dimensional case.

We investigate the dewetting of a droplet on a smooth horizontal solid surface for different slip lengths and equilibrium contact angles. Specifically, we solve for the axisymmetric Stokes flow using the boundary element method with (i) the Navier-slip boundary condition at the solid/liquid boundary and (ii) a time-independent equilibrium contact angle at the contact line. When decreasing the rescaled slip length $\tilde{b}$ with respect to the initial central height of the droplet, the typical non-sphericity of a droplet first increases, reaches a maximum at a characteristic rescaled slip length $\tilde{b}_{m}\approx O(0.1{-}1)$ and then decreases. Regarding different equilibrium contact angles, two universal rescalings are proposed to describe the behaviour of the non-sphericity for rescaled slip lengths larger or smaller than $\tilde{b}_{m}$. Around $\tilde{b}_{m}$, the early time evolution of the profiles at the rim can be described by similarity solutions. The results are explained in terms of the structure of the flow field governed by different dissipation channels: elongational flows for $\tilde{b}\gg \tilde{b}_{m}$, friction at the substrate for $\tilde{b}\approx \tilde{b}_{m}$ and shear flows for $\tilde{b}\ll \tilde{b}_{m}$. Following the changes between these dominant dissipation mechanisms, our study indicates a crossover to the quasistatic regime when $\tilde{b}$ is many orders of magnitude smaller than $\tilde{b}_{m}$.

The resonant interactions between topographic planetary waves in a continuously stratified fluid are investigated theoretically. The interacting waves form a resonant triad and travel along a channel with a uniformly sloping bottom. The basic state stratification in the channel is characterized by a constant buoyancy frequency. The existence of solutions to the quadratic resonance conditions is established graphically. Each wave by itself is a bottom-intensified oscillation of the type discovered by Rhines (1970) except for the addition of a small positive frequency correction. This correction must be included to satisfy higher-order terms in the bottom boundary condition. For strong stratification (r2 [Gt ] L2, where r = internal deformation radius and L = channel width), the waves are strongly bottom-trapped and this frequency correction is negligible. For weak stratification (r2 [Lt ] L2) the waves are barotropic and the frequency correction is O(δ), where δ = fractional change in depth across the channel. In many oceanic contexts, δ lies in the range 0·1-0·4 and therefore this correction can produce a significant change in the phase speed. The amplitudes of the waves in the triad obey the classical gyroscopic equations usually encountered in quadratic resonance problems. In particular, the amplitudes evolve on the slow time scale \[ t=O(1/f_0\delta^2), \] which for our scaling assumptions is also O(1/f0Ro), where Ro is the Rossby number.

The results are applied to the Norwegian continental slope region. It is shown that, in this vicinity, there may exist resonant triads consisting of two short, high-frequency waves (periods around 3-4 days) and one long, low-frequency wave (period around 9 days).

Hydraulic jumps, roll waves or bores in open channel flows are often treated as singularities by hydraulicians while slowly varying shallow water flows are described by continuous solutions of the Saint-Venant equations. Richard & Gavrilyuk (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 725, 2013, pp. 492–521) have enriched this model by introducing an equation for roller vorticity in a very elegant manner. This new model matches several experimental results that have resisted theoretical approaches for decades. This is the case of the roller of a stationary hydraulic jump as well as the oscillatory instability that the jump encounters when the Froude number is increased. The universality of their approach as well as its convincing comparisons with experimental results open the way for significant progress in the modelling of open channel flows.

Differentiation of the Hugoniot function $H (p,v) = E(p,v)-E(p_0,v_0)+\frac {1}{2}(p + p_0)(v_0 - v)$ and use of the first and second laws of thermodynamics leads to the relation dH = T dS+dA, where dA is the element of area in the (p, v) plane swept out (in a counter-clockwise direction) by the line segment (p0, v0) → (p, v) as the point (p, v) is moved from some point (p1, v1) to a neighbouring point (p1+dp1, v1+dv1). This relation, together with rather general assumptions regarding the shape of the isentropic curves dS = 0 for the material behind the shock, makes possible the geometrical derivation of a number of properties of the function H and of the Hugoniot curves dH = 0.

The structure, transport properties and regimes of flow exhibited in a rotating fluid annulus, subject to internal heating and sidewall cooling, are studied both in the laboratory and in numerical simulations. The performance of the numerical model is verified quantitatively to within a few per cent in several cases by direct comparison with measurements in the laboratory of temperature and horizontal velocity fields in the axisymmetric and regular wave regimes. The basic azimuthal mean flow produced by this distribution of heat sources and sinks leads to strips of potential vorticity in which the radial gradient of potential vorticity changes sign in both the vertical and horizontal directions. From diagnosis of the energy budget of numerical simulations, the principal instability of the flow is shown to be predominantly baroclinic in nature, though with a non-negligible contribution towards the maintenance of the non-axisymmetric flow components from the barotropic wave–zonal flow interaction. The structure of the regime diagram for the internally heated baroclinic waves is shown to have some aspects in common with conventional wall-heated annulus waves, but the former shows no evidence for time-dependence in the form of ‘amplitude vacillation’. Internally heated flows instead evidently prefer to make transitions between wavenumbers in the regular regime via a form of vortex merging and/or splitting, indicating a mixed vortex/wave character to the non-axisymmetric flows in this system. The transition towards irregular flow occurs via a form of wavenumber vacillation, also involving vortex splitting and merging events. Baroclinic eddies are shown to develop from an initial axisymmetric flow via a mixed sinuous/varicose instability, leading to the formation of detached vortices of the same sign as the ambient axisymmetric potential vorticity at that level, in a manner which resembles recent simulations of atmospheric baroclinic frontal instability and varicose barotropic instabilities. Dye tracer experiments confirm the mixed wave/vortex character of the equilibrated instabilities, and exhibit chaotic advection in time-dependent flows.

The three-dimensional stability of the family of two-dimensional inviscid vortex patches discovered by Abrashkin & Yakubovich (Sov. Phys. Dokl. vol. 29, 1984, p. 370) is explored. Generally unsteady and non-uniform, these bounded regions of vorticity evolve freely in a surrounding irrotational flow. This family of solutions includes the Rankine circular vortex, Kirchhoff's ellipse, and freely rotating polygonal vortices as special cases. Taking advantage of their Lagrangian description, the stability analysis is carried out with the theory of local instabilities. It is shown that, apart from the Rankine vortex, these flows are three-dimensionally unstable. Background rotation or density stratification may however be stabilizing.

The local flow patterns and their bifurcations associated with non-simple degenerate critical points appearing away from boundaries are investigated under the symmetric condition about a straight line in two-dimensional incompressible flow. These flow patterns are determined via a bifurcation analysis of polynomial expansions of the streamfunction in the proximity of the degenerate critical points. The normal form transformation is used in order to construct a simple streamfunction family, which classifies all possible local streamline topologies for given order of degeneracy (degeneracies of order three and four are considered). The relation between local and global flow patterns is exemplified by a cavity flow.

The unsteady nonlinear potential flow induced by a submerged line source or sink is studied by a vortex sheet method, both to trace the free surface evolution and to explore the possible existence of steady-state solutions. Only steady-state flows have been considered by other investigators, and these flows have been insensitive to whether they are generated by a source or sink, except with respect to the flow direction along the streamlines. The time-dependent solution permits an assessment of the stability of previously found steady solutions, and also reveals differences between source and sink flows: for the infinite-depth case, steady stagnation-point-type solutions are found both for source flows and sink flows, above the critical value reported by other investigators; finally, it is shown that streamline patterns of steady stagnation-point flows are identical for source and sink flows only in the limiting case of infinite depth.

The work of Benjamin, Mullin, Pfister and others on the non-uniqueness of solutions of the Navier–Stokes equation in Couette flow at small aspect ratio has revealed the existence of ‘anomalous’ 1-cell modes. A natural question to ask is whether these ‘anomalous’ modes are robust enough to survive the application of a body force, such as an externally applied magnetic field. We find that the answer is positive, although, with increasing magnetic field, steady 2-cell flows are generally more stable than 1-cell states. We also show that new time-dependent flows are easy to excite at relatively low Reynolds numbers compared to the case without a magnetic field, and we present two such flows.

In this study, the limiting maximum drag-reduction asymptote for the moment coefficient of a rotating disk in a surfactant solution was obtained analytically. The analysis, which was based on the logarithmic velocity profile of turbulent pipe flow in the surfactant solution, was carried out using momentum integral equations of the boundary layer, and the moment coefficient results agreed with experimental results for maximum drag reduction in surfactant solution. Additionally, flow visualization was performed using the tracer and the tuft techniques, which revealed that the direction of flow of surfactant solution on the disk was turned towards the circumferential direction and the amplitude of the circular vortex on the rotating disk was reduced by addition of surfactant solution. The experimental results for flow angle on a rotating disk can be explained well with the analytical results.

By the ‘Poincaré problem’ is meant the determination of the free oscillations of a contained rotating fluid, its velocity being linearized around a state of solid rotation. Compressibility requires one to introduce a basic thermodynamic profile as well as a basic velocity distribution. Here the temperature gradient has been supposed proportional to the adiabatic gradient, by introduction of a proportionality constant α (α = 0 in the isothermal case; α = 1 in the adiabatic case). In this formulation the system is reducible to a single second-order ordinary differential equation and its boundary condition.

It is proved that if α = 1 the oscillation frequencies in the rotating system cannot equal plus or minus twice the rotation frequency. The negative case is pathological in the sense that there are solutions arbitrarily near the forbidden solution, and a solution curve of frequency as a function of rotation rate crosses the forbidden frequency.

The basic system is expanded in terms of a power series in γ − 1, where γ is the ratio of specific heats. The zeroth-order set of equations is solved in terms of confluent hypergeometric functions, and a solvability condition on the first-order set gives frequency shifts as functions of α. Several zeroth-order frequencies have been calculated, together with four first-order frequency shifts.

The problem of flow of an inviscid, incompressible fluid inside a circular pipe, with a sphere on the axis of the pipe, has been studied by Lamb (1936) (irrotational flow), Long (1953) and Fraenkel (1956) (swirling flow). Because of the difficulty of satisfying all the boundary conditions in the problem, only approximate solutions, valid for spheres of small diameter (compared with that of the pipe) have been obtained. In this paper, it is found that by introducing a vortex sheet over a segment of the diameter of the sphere, flow patterns can be obtained by an inverse method for the case of large spheres. Four different types of flow are considered: (1) irrotational flow, (2) swirling flow with constant axial and angular velocities far upstream, without lee waves, (3) swirling flow with constant axial and angular velocities far upstream, with lee waves, and (4) rotational flow with a paraboloidal velocity distribution far upstream.

When a sphere or other bluff body travels at supersonic speeds, a shock wave is formed close to the front surface. With increase of speed the air behind the shock is further compressed, and the shock wave moves closer to the surface. This paper considers the case where the region close to the stagnation point between the shock and the sphere can be taken to be a steady laminar boundary layer.

The approximate solution of the equations of motion follows closely the classical work of Homann (1936), ideas similar to those of Lighthill (1957) being used to apply it to the problem in hand. It consists mainly in reducing the equations to ordinary differential form by assuming forms of the flow variables which satisfy the boundary conditions, notably at the shock wave. In addition, several transformations are employed in order to simplify the equations and to increase the range of solutions, and also to facilitate the use of the ‘Mercury’ electronic computer in solving them.

The results give an insight into some aspects of hypersonic flows. Included in this paper are a selection of temperature and transverse velocity profiles across the boundary layer and several graphs relating such quantities as the shock stand-off distance and the skin-friction coefficient with Reynolds number. The last two mentioned are the most interesting. The first set gives the surprising result that the shock stand-off distance increases with increase in Reynolds number, whereas it is known that the skin-friction coefficient is inversely proportional to a decreasing power of the Reynolds number when it is lower than order 103, but the indication is that it tends to the expected constant power of ½ when the Reynolds number is of order 104.

We show hydrodynamic boundary conditions to be the inherent consequence of the Onsager principle of minimum energy dissipation, provided the relevant effects of the wall potential appear within a thin fluid layer next to the solid wall, denoted the surface layer. The condition that the effect of the surface layer on the bulk hydrodynamics must be independent of its thickness h is shown to imply a set of consistent ‘scaling relationships’ between h and the surface-layer variables/parameters. The use of the scaling relations, in conjunction with the surface-layer equations of motion derived from the Onsager principle, directly leads to the hydrodynamic boundary conditions. We demonstrate the surface-layer scaling process both physically and mathematically, and relate the parameters of the boundary conditions to those in the surface-layer equations of motion. In spatial regions outside the surface layer, equivalence between the use of surface-layer dynamics and boundary conditions is numerically demonstrated for Couette flows. As an application of the present approach, we derive the liquid-crystal hydrodynamic boundary conditions in which the rotational and translational dynamics are coupled.

A concept which explains unstable modes by resonance between two neutral waves is applied to instability in shear flows with non-uniform potential vorticity distribution. In basic flows where shear instability occurs, a pair of neutral waves which should resonate to form an unstable mode does not exist mathematically unless the basic potential vorticity is uniform, owing to the shear of the basic flow. However, if a small window region is made where the potential vorticity of the basic flow is uniform, regular neutral modes can exist. The neutral wave located at the centre of this window region, which corresponds to a mode where the jump in its first derivative at one end of the window region cancels that at the other end, can be considered to be the hidden neutral wave. It is equivalent to a continuous mode which does not have a jump in its first derivative at the critical point even though it can have a singularity of $(y\ensuremath{-} {y}_{c} )\log \vert y\ensuremath{-} {y}_{c} \vert $, in the limit of an infinitely small window region. Thus, a method for retrieving neutral waves hidden in the shear of the basic flow is proposed here. By sweeping the basic flow range with this uniform potential vorticity window, all the features of the hidden neutral wave appear. By applying this method, shear instability in a flow with a tanh-shaped basic velocity profile is well explained via the resonance between neutral waves.

An axisymmetric drop spreads on a radially heated, partially wetting solid substrate in a rotating geometry. The lubrication approximation is applied to the field equations for this thin viscous drop to yield an evolution equation that captures the dependence of viscosity, surface tension, gravity, centrifugal forces and thermocapillarity. We study the quasi-static spreading regime, whereby droplet motion is controlled by a constitutive law that relates the contact angle to the contact-line speed. Non-uniform heating of the substrate can generate both vertical and radial temperature gradients along the drop interface, which produce distinct thermocapillary forces and equivalently flows that affect the spreading process. For the non-rotating system, competition between surface chemistry (wetting) and thermocapillary flows induced by the thermal gradients gives rise to bistability in certain regions of parameter space in which the droplets converge to an equilibrium shape. The centrifugal forces that develop in a rotating geometry enlarge the bistability regions. Parameter regimes in which the droplet spreads indefinitely are identified and spreading laws are computed to compare with experimental results from the literature.

New solutions describing the interaction of helical pairs of counter-rotating vortices are obtained using a vortex filament approach. The vortices are assumed to have a small core size allowing the calculation of the self-induced velocities from the Biot–Savart law using the cutoff theory. These new vortex structures do not possess any helical symmetry but they exhibit a spatial periodicity and are stationary in a rotating and translating frame. Their properties, such as radial deformation, frame velocity and induced flow, are provided as a function of the four geometric parameters characterizing each solution. Approximate solutions are also obtained when the mutual interaction is weak. This allows us to provide explicit expressions for the rotation and translation velocities of the structure in this limit. First-order corrections describing helix deformation are also calculated and used for comparison with the numerical results. The variation of the vortex core size induced by the helix deformation is also analysed. We show that these variations have a weak effect on the shape and characteristics of the solutions, for the range of parameters that we have considered. The results are finally applied to rotor wakes. It is explained how these solutions could possibly describe the far wake of an helicopter rotor in vertical flight.

A mathematical model of rectilinear surface waves incident on a submerged circular sill is developed. The class of waves considered consists of those for which the ratio of wavelength to water depth is large but which do not necessarily belong in the longwave category. A friction damping term is introduced into the equations of motion and the solutions obtained for the regions over the sill and in the ocean are matched by assuming a continuous surface and energy flux at the sill edge. The results show large reductions in the Q-factor of the resonance peaks brought about by friction damping. It is also found that, except at low frequency, a large number of overlapping resonance peaks which are out of phase with one another occupy a relatively narrow frequency band such that these resonance peaks effectively cancel one another. Experiments were performed to determine the friction constant used in the equations of motion and, using this friction constant, the theoretical results of wave resonance are verified.