Motivated by the need for accurate determination of wall shear stress from profile measurements in turbulent boundary layer flows, the total shear stress balance is analysed and reformulated using several well-established semi-empirical relations. The analysis highlights the significant effect that small pressure gradients can have on parameters deduced from data even in nominally zero pressure gradient boundary layers. Using the comprehensive shear stress balance together with the log-law equation, it is shown that friction velocity, roughness length and zero-plane displacement can be determined with only velocity and turbulent shear stress profile measurements at a single streamwise location for nominally zero pressure gradient turbulent boundary layers. Application of the proposed analysis to turbulent smooth- and rough-wall experimental data shows that the friction velocity is determined with accuracy comparable to force balances (approximately 1 %–4 %). Additionally, application to boundary layer data from previous studies provides clear evidence that the often cited discrepancy between directly measured friction velocities (e.g. using force balances) and those derived from traditional total shear stress methods is likely due to the small favourable pressure gradient imposed by a fixed cross-section facility. The proposed comprehensive shear stress analysis can account for these small pressure gradients and allows more accurate boundary layer wall shear stress or friction velocity determination using commonly available mean velocity and shear stress profile data from a single streamwise location.

Results are presented from a laboratory study on the free-surface signal generated over an array of submerged circular cylinders, representative of submerged aquatic vegetation. We aim to understand whether aquatic ecosystems generate a surface signature that is indicative of both what is beneath the water surface as well as how it is altering the flow. A shear layer forms over the canopy, generating coherent vortex structures which eventually manifest in the free-surface slope field. We connect the vortex properties measured at the surface with measurements of the bulk flow, and show that correlations between these quantities are adequate to create a parameterized model in which the interior velocity profile can be predicted solely from measurements taken at the free surface. Experimental surface observations yield a Strouhal number that is twice the most amplified mode predicted by linear stability theory, suggesting that vortices may evolve between generation at the canopy height and their manifestation at the water surface. Additionally, the surface signal continues evolving with distance downstream, with vortices becoming spread farther apart and the passage frequency gradually decreasing. By the trailing edge of the canopy, surface-impacting boils emerge for canopies with higher submergence ratios, suggesting a transition from coherent two-dimensional rollers to transversely varying structures.

The electrohydrodynamics of a weakly conducting buoyant drop under the combined influence of gravity and a uniform electric field is studied computationally, focusing on the inertia-dominated regime. Numerical simulations are performed for both perfectly dielectric and leaky dielectric drops over a wide range of dimensionless parameters to explore the interplay of fluid inertia and electrical stress to govern the drop shape and charge convection. For perfectly dielectric drops, the fluid inertia alters the drop shape and the deformation behaviour of the drop follows a non-monotonic path. The drop shape at steady state exhibits the transition from oblate to prolate shape on increasing the electric field strength, in sharp contrast to the cases concerning the Stokes flow regime. Similar behaviour is also obtained for leaky dielectric drops for certain fluid properties. For leaky dielectric drops, the fluid inertia also affects the convective transport of charges at the drop surface and thereby alters the drop dynamics. Unlike the Stokes flow regime, where surface charge convection has little effect on the settling speed, the same modifies the drop settling speed quite significantly in the finite inertial regime depending on the combination of electrical conductivity ratio and permittivity ratio. For oblate drops at low capillary number, charge convection alters drop shape, while keeping the nature of deformation unaltered. However, for relatively large capillary number, the oblate drop transforms into a dimpled shape due to charge convection. For all cases, an interesting fact is noticed that under the combined action of electric and inertial forces, the resultant deformation is less than the summation of the deformations caused by individual effects, when inertial effects are strong. These results are likely to provide deep insights into the interplay of various nonlinearities towards altering electrohydrodynamic settling of drops and bubbles.

Shock wave interaction with solid wedges has been an area of much research in past decades, but so far very few results have been obtained for shock wave reflection off liquid wedges. In this study, numerical simulations are performed using the inviscid Euler equations and the stiffened gas equation of state to study the transition angles, reflection patterns and triple point trajectory angles of shock reflection off solid and water wedges. Experiments using an inclined shock tube are also performed and schlieren photography results are compared to simulations. Results show that the transition angles for the water wedge cases are within 5.3 % and 9.2 %, for simulations and experiments respectively, compared to results obtained with the theoretical detachment criterion for solid surfaces. Triple point trajectory angles are measured and compared with analytic solutions, agreement within $1.3^{\circ }$ is shown for the water wedge cases. The transmitted wave in the water observed in the simulation is quantitatively studied, and two different scenarios are found. For low incident shock Mach numbers, $M_{s}=1.2$ and 2, no shock wave is formed in the water but a precursor wave is induced ahead of the incident shock wave and passes the information from the water back into the air. For high incident shock Mach numbers, $M_{s}=3$ and 4, precursor waves no longer appear but instead a shock wave is formed in the water and attached to the Mach stem at every instant. The temperature field in the water is measured in the simulation. For strong incident shock waves, e.g. $M_{s}=4$, the temperature increment in the water is up to 7.3 K.

Theoretical calculations show that the horizontal displacement of particles in the surface of steep solitary waves exceeds that predicted by the Korteweg–de Vries equation by as much as 100%.

Experimental evidence is given in support of the higher values.

Atherosclerotic lesions in mammalian blood vessels show a definite spatial pattern, and it has been proposed that lesions occur preferentially in regions with a low wall shear stress. Near the entrance to an intercostal artery, lesions on the wall of the aorta occur, initially at least, downstream of the entrance. We model the flow in this region by a linear shear flow along a flat wall (the wall of the main tube/aorta) past an infinitely deep circular hole perpendicular to the wall (the side-branch/intercostal artery), with fluid being sucked into the hole. By assuming Stokes flow, the three-dimensional model problem is reduced to two independent problems on a two-dimensional domain. By addition, the solutions for any particular side-branch flow rate. We find that the wall shear stress in the main tube is elevated upstream of the side-branch entrance, and downstream as well is the side-branch flow rate is small. However, if the flow rate in the side branch is large enough, there will be regions of both elevated and reduced wall shear stress in the main tube downstream of the side-branch entrance, including a stagnation point. The wall shear is lower downsteam than upstream unless there is no net flow into the side branch.

The solutions given apply to the case with flow out of as well as into the hole. Also, the asymptotic structure for the flow in the hole when there is no net flow into the hole, and the analysis of three-dimensional flow near a sharp corner, are given.

In this paper, linear stability analysis on a Newtonian fluid film flowing under the effect of gravity over an inclined porous medium saturated with the same fluid in isothermal condition is carried out. The focus is placed on the effect of the anisotropic and inhomogeneous variations in the permeability of the porous medium on the shear mode and surface mode instabilities. The fluid–porous system is modelled by a coupled two-dimensional Navier–Stokes/Darcy problem. The perturbation equations are solved numerically using the Chebyshev collocation method. Detailed stability characteristics as a function of the depth ratio (the ratio of the depth of the fluid layer to that of the porous layer), the anisotropic parameter (the ratio of the permeability in the direction of the basic flow to that in the direction transverse to the basic flow) and the inhomogeneity functions are presented.

We address the problem of computing the hydrodynamic forces and torques among $N$ solid spherical particles moving with given rotational and translational velocities in Stokes flow. We consider the original fluid–particle model without introducing new hypotheses or models. Our method includes the singular lubrication interactions which may occur when some particles come close to one another. The main new feature is that short-range interactions are propagated to the whole flow, including accurately the many-body lubrication interactions. The method builds on a pre-existing fluid solver and is flexible with respect to the choice of this solver. The error is the error generated by the fluid solver when computing non-singular flows (i.e. with negligible short-range interactions). Therefore, only a small number of degrees of freedom are required and we obtain very accurate simulations within a reasonable computational cost. Our method is closely related to a method proposed by Sangani & Mo (Phys. Fluids, vol. 6, 1994, pp. 1653–1662) but, in contrast with the latter, it does not require parameter tuning. We compare our method with the Stokesian dynamics of Durlofsky et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 180, 1987, pp. 21–49) and show the higher accuracy of the former (both by analysis and by numerical experiments).

The stability of a steacty, laminar, immiscible, dense line plume falling through a fluid whose horizontal extent is much larger than the plume thickness is investigated. It is shown analytically that the primary flow is linearly unstable in the limit of large wavelength and, if surface tension is negligible, is also unstable in the limit of small Reynolds number. A rich variety of modes of perturbation exist, characterized by a range of balances on different lengthscales between diffusion, advection and propagation of vorticity.

We report upon a theoretical and experimental investigation of a porous medium ‘filling box’ flow by specifically examining the details of the laminar descending plume and its outflow in a control volume having an impermeable bottom boundary and sidewalls. The plume outflow initially comprises a pair of oppositely directed gravity currents. The gravity currents propagate horizontally until they reach the lateral sidewalls at $y=\pm L$. The flow then becomes of filling box type, with a vertically ascending ‘first front’ separating discharged plume fluid below from ambient fluid above. The flow details are described analytically by first deriving a new similarity solution for Darcy plumes with $\mathit{Pe}>O(1)$, where $\mathit{Pe}$ is the Péclet number. From the similarity solution so obtained, we then derive expressions for the plume volume flux and mean reduced gravity as functions of the vertical distance from the source. Regarding the plume outflow, a similarity solution adopted from Huppert & Woods (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 292, 1995, pp. 55–69) describes the height and front speed of the gravity currents, whereas a semi-implicit finite difference scheme is used to predict the first front elevation versus time and horizontal distance. As with high-Reynolds-number filling box flows, that studied here is an example of a coupled problem: the gravity current source conditions are prescribed by the plume volume flux and mean reduced gravity. Conversely, discharged plume fluid may be re-entrained into the plume, be it soon or long after reaching the bottom impermeable boundary. To corroborate our model predictions, analogue laboratory experiments are performed with fresh water and salt water as the working fluids. Our experiments consider as independent variables the porous medium bead diameter and the plume source volume flux and reduced gravity. Predictions for the gravity current front position and height compare favourably against analogue measured data. Good agreement is likewise noted when considering either the mean elevation or the profile of the first front. Results from this study may be adopted in modelling geological plumes. For example, our equations can be used to predict the time required for discharged plume fluid to return to the point of injection in the case of aquifers closed on the sides and below by impermeable boundaries.

The problem of a vortex pair, rising obliquely at an angle of 45° toward a deformable free surface in a viscous, incompressible fluid, is solved with the aid of the Navier—Stokes equations. The full nonlinear boundary conditions at the free surface are applied. The oblique interaction of the vortex pair with the free surface results in a number of novel features that have not been observed for the special case of a vertical rise, reported earlier. These features include the directional change of trajectories near the free surface and the occurrence of waves driven by the vortex pair. Moreover, surface tension can completely change the flow characteristics such as the direction of the trajectories and the generation of secondary vortices. Numerical solutions are presented for selected Reynolds, Froude, and Weber numbers.

Langmuir circulations (LCs) generated by the interaction between wind-driven currents and surface waves can engulf the whole water column in neutrally stratified shallow water and interact with the turbulence in the bottom boundary layer. In this study, we perform a mechanistic study using wall-resolved large-eddy simulations (LES) based on the Craik–Leibovich equations to investigate the effects of LCs on turbulence statistics in the bottom half of shallow water. The highest Reynolds number considered in this paper, $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=1000$, is larger than the values considered in wall-resolved LES studies of shallow-water Langmuir turbulence reported in literature. The logarithmic layer is diagnosed based on a plateau region in the profile of a diagnostic function. It is found that the logarithmic layer disrupted at $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=395$ reappears at $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=1000$, but the von Kármán constant is slightly different from the traditional value $0.41$. To study the effects of LCs on turbulence statistics, LCs are extracted using streamwise averaging. The velocity fluctuations $u_{i}^{\prime }$ are decomposed into a LC-coherent part $u_{i}^{L}$ and a residual turbulence part $u_{i}^{T}$. It is found that the profiles of LC-coherent Reynolds shear stress $-\langle u^{L}v^{L}\rangle$ obtained at various Reynolds numbers are close to each other in the water-column coordinate $y/h$, with $h$ being the half-water depth. As the Reynolds number (or, by definition, the ratio between the outer and inner length scales) increases, the influence of LCs on the near-bottom momentum transfer is reduced, which is responsible for the reappearance of the logarithmic layer. At all of the Reynolds numbers under investigation, the peaks of $\langle u^{L}u^{L}\rangle$ are collocated in the water-column coordinate $y/h$, while those of $\langle u^{T}u^{T}\rangle$ are collocated in the inner-scale coordinate $y/(\unicode[STIX]{x1D708}/u_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}})$. Due to the increase in the distance between the peaks of $\langle u^{L}u^{L}\rangle$ and $\langle u^{T}u^{T}\rangle$ with the Reynolds number, the profile of $\langle u^{\prime }u^{\prime }\rangle$ forms a bimodal shape at $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=700$ and $1000$.

We examine the effects of compressiblity on the structure of a single row of hollowcore, constant-pressure vortices. The problem is formulated and solved in the hodograph plane. The transformation from the physical plane to the hodograph plane results in a linear problem that is solved numerically. The numerical solution is checked via a Rayleigh-Janzen expansion. It is observed that for an appropriate choice of the parameters M∞ = q∞/c∞, and the speed ratio, a = q∞/qv, where qv is the speed on the vortex boundary, transonic shock-free flow exists. Also, for a given fixed speed ratio, a, the vortices shrink in size and get closer as the Mach number at infinity, M∞, is increased. In the limit of an evacuated vortex core, we find that all such solutions exhibit cuspidal behaviour corresponding to the onset of limit lines.

A finite-volume model of the classic differentially heated rotating annulus experiment is used to study the spontaneous emission of gravity waves (GWs) from jet stream imbalances, which may be an important source of these waves in the atmosphere and for which no satisfactory parameterisation exists. Experiments were performed using a classic laboratory configuration as well as using a much wider and shallower annulus with a much larger temperature difference between the inner and outer cylinder walls. The latter configuration is more atmosphere-like, in particular since the Brunt–Väisälä frequency is larger than the inertial frequency, resulting in more realistic GW dispersion properties. In both experiments, the model is initialised with a baroclinically unstable axisymmetric state established using a two-dimensional version of the code, and a low-azimuthal-mode baroclinic wave featuring a meandering jet is allowed to develop. Possible regions of GW activity are identified by the horizontal velocity divergence and a modal decomposition of the small-scale structures of the flow. Results indicate GW activity in both annulus configurations close to the inner cylinder wall and within the baroclinic wave. The former is attributable to boundary layer instabilities, while the latter possibly originates in part from spontaneous GW emission from the baroclinic wave.

The possible excitation of synchronous edge waves by a monocromatic wave normally approaching a plane beach is studied. Use is made of the full three-dimensional water wave theory but only beach angles β = π/(2N), where N is an integer, are considered. A weakly nonlinear stability analysis is used to investigate the interaction of subharmonic, synchronous and 3/2-frequency edge waves with the incoming wave field. It is shown that values of β exist for which an energy transfer from the incoming wave to the synchronous edge waves takes place through the intermediary of the subharmonic components.