Breaking spatial symmetry is an essential requirement for phoretic active particles to swim at low Reynolds number. This fundamental prerequisite for swimming at the micro scale is fulfilled either by chemical patterning of the surface of active particles or alternatively by exploiting geometrical asymmetries to induce chemical gradients and achieve self-propulsion. In the present paper, a far-field analytical model is employed to quantify the leading-order contribution to the induced phoretic velocity of a chemically homogeneous isotropic active colloid near a finite-sized disk of circular shape resting on an interface separating two immiscible viscous incompressible Newtonian fluids. To this aim, the solution of the phoretic problem is formulated as a mixed-boundary-value problem that is subsequently transformed into a system of dual integral equations on the inner and outer domains. Depending on the ratio of different involved viscosities and solute solubilities, the sign of phoretic mobility and chemical activity, as well as the ratio of particle–interface distance to the radius of the disk, the isotropic active particle is found to be repelled from the interface, be attracted to it, or reach a stable hovering state and remain immobile near the interface. Our results may prove useful in controlling and guiding the motion of self-propelled phoretic active particles near aqueous interfaces.

Nonlinear interactions between surface and internal gravity waves in a two-layer system are studied using explicit second-order nonlinear evolution equations in Hamiltonian form. Motivated by the detailed experiment of Lewis, Lake & Ko (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 63, 1974, pp. 773–800), our focus is on surface wave modulation by the group resonance mechanism that corresponds to near-resonant triad interactions between a long internal wave and short surface waves. Our numerical solutions show good agreement with laboratory measurements of the local wave amplitude and slope, and confirm that the surface modulation becomes significant when the group velocity of the surface waves matches the phase speed of the internal wave, as the linear modulation theory predicts. It is shown, however, that, after the envelope amplitude is increased sufficiently, the surface and internal waves start to exchange energy through near-resonant triad interactions, which is found to be crucial to accurately describe the long-term surface wave modulation by an internal wave. The reduced amplitude equations are also adopted to validate this observation. For oceanic applications, numerical solutions are presented for a density ratio close to one and it is found that significant energy exchanges occur through primary and successive resonant triad interactions.

In the context of water waves, we consider a resonator with deep subwavelength resonance, analogue to the Helmholtz resonator in acoustics. In the shallow water regime, using asymptotic analysis, a one-dimensional model is derived in which the effect of the resonator is reduced to effective transmission conditions. These conditions clearly highlight two contributions. The first is associated with the dock on its own and it is responsible for a jump of the potential at the free surface. The second is due to the resonant cavity and it is responsible for a jump in the horizontal velocity. It involves as well the uniform amplitude within the resonant cavity with a transient dynamics explicitly given by the equation of a damped oscillator forced by the incident waves. The one-dimensional model is validated in the harmonic regime by comparison to direct two-dimensional numerics. It is shown to reproduce accurately the scattering coefficients and the amplitude within the resonator; interestingly, this remains broadly true for finite water depths. We further inspect the spatio-temporal behaviour of different types of wave packets interacting with the resonating and radiating cavity.

Mechanical degradation of macromolecules in strong flows is encountered in many industrial processes spanning from biopharmaceutics manufacturing to enhanced oil recovery. In spite of extensive research, from molecular studies to large experiments, unifying scaling laws and design rules to harness this phenomenon are still at an early stage. Some of the current modelling approaches predict the onset of flow-induced degradation only, leaving out quantitative calculations of scission events, while others are restricted to a particular process or the materials they have been empirically developed for. In this work we re-examine a previously published constitutive equation for the scission kinetics of polymers and implement the model using the finite volume library OpenFoam. We test and validate this model using experimental degradation measurements of aqueous poly(ethylene oxide) solutions flowing through narrow constrictions. Three polymer molecular weights and three constriction geometries are investigated. For each molecular weight, experimental degradation data of one geometry is used to calibrate the model. Following this calibration step, the level of polymer degradation as a function of flow rate can be predicted for the two other geometries, suggesting that mechanisms linking single molecule scission to macroscopic chemical reaction rate are accurately captured by the model. Although the focus of this work is on flexible linear polymers in dilute concentrations and laminar flow conditions, we discuss how to alleviate these assumptions and extend the applicability of the model to a broader range of materials and industrially relevant flow conditions.

Our understanding of homogeneous vapour bubble growth is currently restricted to asymptotic descriptions of their limiting behaviour. While attempts have been made to incorporate both the inertial and thermal limits into bubble growth models, the early stages of bubble growth have not been captured. By accounting for both the changing inertial driving force and the thermal restriction to growth, we present an inertio-thermal model of homogeneous vapour bubble growth, capable of accurately capturing the evolution of a bubble from the nano- to the macro-scale. We compare our model predictions with: (a) published experimental and numerical data, and (b) our own molecular simulations, showing significant improvement over previous models. This has potential application in improving the performance of engineering devices, such as ultrasonic cleaning and microprocessor cooling, as well as in understanding of natural phenomena involving vapour bubble growth.

The flexural-gravity symmetric waves propagating in an ice channel with a lead of open water in the ice cover are investigated within the linear theory of hydroelasticity. The ice sheets are modelled as either elastic or as rigid plates. Deflections of the elastic ice sheets are described by the linear elastic plate equation. The flexural-gravity waves propagating along the channel and their dispersion relations are obtained by the normal mode method. It is shown that the dispersion relations for elastic ice approach the dispersion relations for rigid ice as the rigidity of ice increases or the wavelength decreases. The region in the plane ice thickness/wavenumber, where the ice cover can be treated as rigid with a prescribed accuracy, is determined. The effects of the ice thickness and width of the lead on the phase speeds are studied to determine critical speeds of a vehicle moving along the channel. It is shown that wave modes have several critical speeds, which may merge for some parameters of the channel. The presence of the lead significantly changes the characteristics of waves in an ice channel. Short waves, which propagate in a channel fully covered with ice, weakly depend on gravity and the presence of water in the channel. However, short waves propagating in the same channel but with a lead of open water are gravity-dominated waves localised in the lead. We conclude that flexural-gravity waves in an ice channel with a lead are less pronounced than in the channel completely covered by ice.

We show that Kolmogorov scale-by-scale equilibrium in the intermediate layer of a fully developed turbulent channel flow is only achieved asymptotically around the Taylor length and, therefore, not in an inertial range. Furthermore, we analyse scale-by-scale turbulence production and interscale turbulence energy transfer in terms of alignments/anti-alignments of fluctuating velocities, straining/compressive relative motions, forward/inverse interscale transfer/cascade and homogeneous/non-homogeneous interscale transfer rate contributions. We also propose leading order scalings for second- and third-order two-point statistics, including the extremum interscale turbulence energy transfer rate and a second-order anisotropic structure function, which acts as a scale-by-scale Reynolds shear stress and determines the scale-by-scale (two-point) turbulence production rate.

In this work, the stability of hypersonic flow over a curved compression ramp is studied using several stability analysis tools and direct numerical simulations (DNS). The free-stream Mach number and the unit Reynolds number are 7.7 and $4.2 \times 10^6$ m$^{-1}$, respectively. Corner rounding is considered to alter the separation bubble flow so as to suppress the intrinsic instability of the compression-ramp flow. The variation of intrinsic instability is confirmed by global stability analysis. Subsequently, resolvent analysis is employed to examine the response of intrinsically stable flows to external disturbances. It is shown that the considered flows strongly amplify low-frequency streamwise streaks with a preferential spanwise wavelength. This result is verified using DNS by introducing a random forcing upstream of the separation point. Furthermore, both resolvent analysis and DNS demonstrate that the separation bubble contributes little to the selection of the spanwise wavelength of streamwise streaks. The combined effects of convective and intrinsic instabilities are also explored using DNS. A better agreement with experimental data is achieved after introducing upstream disturbances in an inherently unstable flow.

Near-wall flow simulation remains a central challenge in aerodynamics modelling: Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes predictions of separated flows are often inaccurate, and large-eddy simulation (LES) can require prohibitively small near-wall mesh sizes. A deep learning (DL) closure model for LES is developed by introducing untrained neural networks into the governing equations and training in situ for incompressible flows around rectangular prisms at moderate Reynolds numbers. The DL-LES models are trained using adjoint partial differential equation (PDE) optimization methods to match, as closely as possible, direct numerical simulation (DNS) data. They are then evaluated out-of-sample – for aspect ratios, Reynolds numbers and bluff-body geometries not included in the training data – and compared with standard LES models. The DL-LES models outperform these models and are able to achieve accurate LES predictions on a relatively coarse mesh (downsampled from the DNS mesh by factors of four or eight in each Cartesian direction). We study the accuracy of the DL-LES model for predicting the drag coefficient, near-wall and far-field mean flow, and resolved Reynolds stress. A crucial challenge is that the LES quantities of interest are the steady-state flow statistics; for example, a time-averaged velocity component $\langle {u}_i\rangle (x) = \lim _{t \rightarrow \infty } ({1}/{t}) \int _0^t u_i(s,x)\, {\rm d}s$. Calculating the steady-state flow statistics therefore requires simulating the DL-LES equations over a large number of flow times through the domain. It is a non-trivial question whether an unsteady PDE model with a functional form defined by a deep neural network can remain stable and accurate on $t \in [0, \infty )$, especially when trained over comparatively short time intervals. Our results demonstrate that the DL-LES models are accurate and stable over long time horizons, which enables the estimation of the steady-state mean velocity, fluctuations and drag coefficient of turbulent flows around bluff bodies relevant to aerodynamics applications.

Direct numerical simulations and linear stability analysis are carried out to study mixed convection in a horizontal duct with constant-rate heating applied at the bottom and an imposed transverse horizontal magnetic field. A two-dimensional approximation corresponding to the asymptotic limit of a very strong magnetic field effect is validated and applied, together with full three-dimensional analysis, to investigate the flow's behaviour in the previously unexplored range of control parameters corresponding to typical conditions of a liquid metal blanket of a nuclear fusion reactor (Hartmann numbers up to $10^4$ and Grashof numbers up to $10^{10}$). It is found that the instability to quasi-two-dimensional rolls parallel to the magnetic field discovered at smaller Hartmann and Grashof numbers in earlier studies also occurs in this parameter range. Transport of the rolls by the mean flow leads to magnetoconvective temperature fluctuations of exceptionally high amplitudes. It is also demonstrated that quasi-two-dimensional structure of flows at very high Hartmann numbers does not guarantee accuracy of the classical two-dimensional approximation. The accuracy deteriorates at the highest Grashof numbers considered in the study.

An experimental study in a wind tunnel is presented to explore the wake of a floating wind turbine subjected to harmonic side-to-side and fore–aft motions under laminar inflow conditions. The wake recovery is analysed as a function of the frequency of motion $f_p$, expressed by the rotor-based Strouhal number, $St = f_p D / U_{\infty }$ ($D$ is the rotor diameter, $U_{\infty }$ the inflow wind speed). Our findings indicate that both directions of motion accelerate the transition to the far-wake compared with the fixed turbine. The experimental outcomes confirm the computational fluid dynamics results of Li et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 934, 2022, p. A29) showing that sideways motions lead to faster wake recovery, especially for $St \in [0.2, 0.6]$. Additionally, we find that fore–aft motions also lead to better recovery for $St \in [0.3, 0.9]$. The recovery is closely linked to nonlinear spatiotemporal dynamics found in the shear layer region of the wake. For both directions of motion and $St \in [0.2, 0.55]$, the noisy wake dynamics lock in to the frequency of the motion. In this synchronised-like state, sideways motions result in large coherent structures of meandering, and fore–aft movements induce coherent pulsing of the wake. For fore–aft motion and $St \in [0.55, 0.9]$, the wake shows a more complex quasiperiodic dynamic, namely, a self-generated meandering mode emerges, which interacts nonlinearly with the excitation frequency $St$, as evidenced by the occurrence of mixing components. The coherent structures grow nonlinearly, enhance wake mixing and accelerate the transition to the far-wake, which, once reached, exhibits universal behaviour.

We propose a more conservative, physically-intuitive criterion, namely, the boundary enstrophy flux ($BEF$), to characterise leading-edge-type dynamic stall onset in incompressible flows. Our results are based on wall-resolved large-eddy simulations of pitching aerofoils, with fine spatial and temporal resolution around stall onset. We observe that $|BEF|$ reaches a maximum within the stall onset regime identified. By decomposing the contribution to $BEF$ from the flow field, we find that the dominant contribution arises from the laminar leading edge region, due to the combined effect of large clockwise vorticity and favourable pressure gradient. A relatively small contribution originates from the transitional/turbulent laminar separation bubble (LSB) region, due to LSB-induced counter-clockwise vorticity and adverse pressure gradient. This results in $BEF$ being nearly independent of the integration length as long as the region very close to the leading edge is included. This characteristic of $BEF$ yields a major advantage in that the effect of partial or complete inclusion of the noisy LSB region can be filtered out, without changing the $BEF$ peak location in time significantly. Next, we analytically relate $BEF$ to the net wall shear and show that its critical value ($=\max (|BEF|)$) corresponds to the instant of maximum net shear prevailing at the wall. Finally, we have also compared $BEF$ with the leading edge suction parameter ($LESP$) (Ramesh et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 751, 2014, pp. 500–538) and find that the former reaches its maximum value between $0.3^{\circ }$ and $0.8^{\circ }$ of rotation earlier.

The numerical investigation focuses on the flow patterns around a rectangular cylinder with three aspect ratios ($L/D=5$, $10$, $15$) at a Reynolds number of $1000$. The study delves into the dynamics of vortices, their associated frequencies, the evolution of the boundary layer and the decay of the wake. Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) vortices originate from the leading edge (LE) shear layer and transform into hairpin vortices. Specifically, at $L/D=5$, three KH vortices merge into a single LE vortex. However, at $L/D=10$ and $15$, two KH vortices combine to form a LE vortex, with the rapid formation of hairpin vortex packets. A fractional harmonic arises due to feedback from the split LE shear layer moving upstream, triggering interaction with the reverse flow. Trailing edge (TE) vortices shed, creating a Kármán-like street in the wake. The intensity of wake oscillation at $L/D=5$ surpasses that in the other two cases. Boundary layer transition occurs after the saturation of disturbance energy for $L/D=10$ and $15$, but not for $L/D=5$. The low-frequency disturbances are selected to generate streaks inside the boundary layer. The TE vortex shedding induces the formation of a favourable pressure gradient, accelerating the flow and fostering boundary layer relaminarization. The self-similarity of the velocity defect is observed in all three wakes, accompanied by the decay of disturbance energy. Importantly, the decrease in the shedding frequency of LE (TE) vortices significantly contributes to the overall decay of disturbance energy. This comprehensive exploration provides insights into complex flow phenomena and their underlying dynamics.