A train of uniform two-dimensional gravity waves in deep water is known to be unstable to certain sideband disturbances. If the time of propagation is sufficiently long for the fourth-order terms to be important, the sidebands may grow at unequal rates, resulting in a downward shift of peak frequency. But this shift is only a temporary phase of a recurrent evolution process. Recent work by us (Hara & Mei 1991) has shown that wind and dissipation can help maintain this downshift at large time. In this paper we examine a similar two-dimensional problem for capillary–gravity waves. The basic flow in air and water is assumed to be steady, horizontally uniform and turbulent; the wave-induced flow in both media is assumed to be laminar. Evolution equations are deduced with wind and dissipation included in such a way that their influence is comparable to the asymmetric spectral evolution. After finding the initial growth rates of unstable sidebands, the nonlinear development of modulational instability is examined by integrating the evolution equations numerically. Computed results show that persistent downshift of frequency can happen for relatively long waves, but upshift occurs for very short waves.

The flow in the bulk driven by a viscous interfacial film set in motion by a rotating sharp circular knife edge has been examined through experiments and computations. In the experiments, the water surface is covered by an insoluble monomolecular film of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), a molecule of wide interest in biology and medicine. It is shown that the viscous coupling between the interfacial film and the bulk liquid leads to a strong bulk flow. Depending on the surface packing and corresponding surface tension, DPPC monolayers exhibit a wide range of phase morphologies. Upon shearing the monolayer, its viscous response varies from that of an essentially inviscid film at low surface packing, to that of a highly viscous non-Newtonian (shear thinning) film when the packing is dense. The more viscous the film, the stronger the driven bulk flow. We have examined this behaviour for hydrodynamic regimes straddling the Stokes flow regime and where flow inertia is important.

The theory of stress-induced cavitation is applied here to the problem of cavitation of a viscous liquid in the streaming flow past a stationary sphere. This theory is a revision of the pressure theory which states that a flowing liquid will cavitate when and where the pressure drops below a cavitation threshold, or breaking strength, of the liquid. In the theory of stress-induced cavitation the liquid will cavitate when and where the maximum tensile stress exceeds the breaking strength of the liquid. For example, liquids at atmospheric pressure which cannot withstand tension will cavitate when and where additive tensile stresses due to motion exceed one atmosphere. A cavity will open in the direction of the maximum tensile stress, which is 45° from the plane of shearing in pure shear of a Newtonian fluid. This maximum tension criterion is applied here to analyse the onset of cavitation for the irrotational motion of a viscous fluid, the special case imposed by the limit of very low Reynolds numbers and the fluid flow obtained from the numerical solution of the Navier–Stokes equations. The analysis leads to a dimensionless expression for the maximum tensile stress as a function of position which depends on the cavitation and Reynolds numbers. The main conclusion is that at a fixed cavitation number the extent of the region of flow at risk to cavitation increases as the Reynolds number decreases. This prediction that more viscous liquids at a fixed cavitation number are at greater risk of cavitation seems not to be addressed, affirmed nor denied, in the cavitation literature known to us.

A numerical study of the three-dimensional internal waves excited by topography in the flow of a stratified fluid is described. In the resonant flow of a nearly two-layer fluid, it is found that the time-development of the nonlinearly excited waves agrees qualitatively with the solution of the forced KP equation or the forced extended KP equation. In this case, the upstream-advancing solitary waves become asymptotically straight crested because of abnormal reflection at the sidewall similar to Mach reflection. The same phenomenon also occurs in the subcritical flow of a nearly two-layer fluid. However, in the subcritical flow of a linearly stratified Boussinesq fluid, the two-dimensionalization of the upstream waves can be interpreted as the separation of the lateral modes due to the differences in the group velocity of the linear wave, although this does not mean in general that the generation of upstream waves is describable by the linearized equation.

Instability and transition to turbulence in a temporally evolving free shear layer of an electrically conducting fluid affected by an imposed parallel magnetic field is investigated numerically. The case of low magnetic Reynolds number is considered. It has long been known that the neutral disturbances of the linear problem are three-dimensional at sufficiently strong magnetic fields. We analyse the details of this instability solving the generalized Orr–Sommerfeld equation to determine the wavenumbers, growth rates and spatial shapes of the eigenmodes. The three-dimensional perturbations are identified as oblique waves and their properties are described. In particular, we find that at high hydrodynamic Reynolds number, the effect of the strength of the magnetic field on the fastest growing perturbations is limited to an increase of their oblique angle. The dimensions and spatial shape of the waves remain unchanged. The transition to turbulence triggered by the growing oblique waves is investigated in direct numerical simulations. It is shown that initial perturbations in the form of superposition of two symmetric waves are particularly effective in inducing three-dimensionality and turbulence in the flow.

Viscous stretching of a cigar-shaped drop due to the centrifugal pressure field in a surrounding rapidly rotating denser fluid is analysed. Scaling arguments are used to examine the various contributions to the viscous stresses resisting deformation, and a number of asymptotic regimes are identified which are delineated by the relative magnitudes of the aspect ratio, the viscosity ratio and unity. These asymptotic regimes may usefully be described as the bubble, pipe, sliding-rod and toffee-strand limits. Detailed analysis based upon a slenderness assumption combined with an integral representation of Stokes equations is used to derive evolution equations for the shape of the drop as a function of time in the different regimes. In the limit that interfacial-tension effects are negligible, similarity solutions are developed in which the length of the drop is found to increase as t2/5, t1/4, (t ln t)1/4 and t. The analytical results are in good agreement with numerical simulations based upon a boundary-integral solution to the full viscous flow equations.

A mathematical model is developed with which the reading from a piezometer ring may be predicted from the individual wall static measurements and from this the conventional form of ring is shown to be unreliable in asymmetrical flow. An alternative form of ring known as the Triple-T is analysed and shown to provide a true mean pressure in all cases. It is recommended that this form be used in all future test work. Tests demonstrating the validity of the theory are described.

Thermal convection in a rotating cylinder near onset is investigated using direct numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations with the Boussinesq approximation in a regime dominated by the Coriolis force. For thermal driving too small to support convection throughout the entire cell, convection sets in as alternating pairs of hot and cold plumes in the sidewall boundary layer, the so-called wall modes of rotating convection. We subject the wall modes to small amplitude harmonic modulations of the rotation rate over a wide range of frequencies. The modulations produce harmonic Ekman boundary layers at the top and bottom lids as well as a Stokes boundary layer at the sidewall. These boundary layers drive a time-periodic large-scale circulation that interacts with the wall-localized thermal plumes in a non-trivial manner. The resultant phenomena include a substantial shift in the onset of wall-mode convection to higher temperature differences for a broad band of frequencies, as well as a significant alteration of the precession rate of the wall mode at very high modulation frequencies due to the mean azimuthal streaming flow resulting from the modulations.

This paper is concerned with the nonlinear interaction between a planar and a pair of oblique Tollmien–Schlichting (T-S) waves which are phase-locked in that they travel with (nearly) the same phase speed. The evolution of such a disturbance is described using a high-Reynolds-number asymptotic approach in the so-called ‘upper--branch’ scaling regime. It follows that there exists a well-defined common critical layer (i.e. a thin region surrounding the level at which the basic flow velocity equals the phase speed of the waves to leading order) and the dominant interactions take place there. The disturbance is shown to evolve through several distinctive stages. In the first of these, the critical layer is in equilibrium and viscosity dominated. If a small mismatching exists in the phase speeds, the interaction between the planar and oblique waves leads directly to super-exponential growth/decay of the oblique modes. However, if the modes are perfectly phase-locked, the interaction in the first instance affects only the phase of the amplitude function of the oblique modes (so causing rapid wavelength shortening), while the modulus of the amplitude still evolves exponentially until the wavelength shortening produces a back reaction on the modulus (which then induces a super-exponential growth). Whether or not there is a small mismatch or a perfect match in the phase speeds, once the growth rate of the oblique modes becomes sufficiently large, the disturbance enters a second stage, in which the critical layer becomes both non-equilibrium and viscous in nature. The oblique modes continue to experience super-exponential growth, albeit of a different form from that in the previous stages, until the self-interaction between them, as well as their back effect on the planar mode, becomes important. At that point, the disturbance enters a third, fully interactive stage, during which the development of the disturbance is governed by the amplitude equations with the same nonlinear terms as previously derived for the phase-locked interaction of Rayleigh instability waves. The solution develops a singularity, leading to the final stage where the flow is governed by fully nonlinear three-dimensional inviscid triple-deck equations. The present work indicates that seeding a planar T-S wave can enhance the amplification of all oblique modes which share approximately its phase speed.

The stability of the Rayleigh–Bénard–Poiseuille flow in a channel with large transverse aspect ratio (ratio of width to vertical channel height) is studied experimentally. The onset of thermal convection in the form of ‘transverse rolls’ (rolls with axes perpendicular to the Poiseuille flow direction) is determined in the Reynolds–Rayleigh number plane for two different working fluids: water and mineral oil with Prandtl numbers of approximately 6.5 and 450, respectively. By analysing experimental realizations of the system impulse response it is demonstrated that the observed onset of transverse rolls corresponds to their transition from convective to absolute instability. Finally, the system response to localized patches of supercriticality (in practice local ‘hot spots’) is observed and compared with analytical and numerical results of Martinand, Carrière & Monkewitz (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 502, 2004, p. 175 and vol. 551, 2006, p. 275). The experimentally observed two-dimensional saturated global modes associated with these patches appear to be of the ‘steep’ variety, analogous to the one-dimensional steep nonlinear modes of Pier, Huerre & Chomaz (Physica D, vol. 148, 2001, p. 49).

The large-scale/long-time transport of inertial particles of arbitrary mass density under gravity is investigated by means of a formal multiple-scale perturbative expansion in the scale-separation parameter between the carrier flow and the particle concentration field. The resulting large-scale equation for the particle concentration is determined, and is found to be diffusive with a positive definite eddy diffusivity. The calculation of the latter tensor is reduced to the resolution of an auxiliary differential problem, consisting of a coupled set of two differential equations in a -dimensional coordinate system (three space coordinates plus three velocity coordinates plus time). Although expensive, numerical methods can be exploited to obtain the eddy diffusivity, for any desirable non-perturbative limit (e.g. arbitrary Stokes and Froude numbers). The aforementioned large-scale equation is then specialized to deal with two different relevant perturbative limits: (i) vanishing of both Stokes time and sedimenting particle velocity; (ii) vanishing Stokes time and finite sedimenting particle velocity. Both asymptotics lead to a greatly simplified auxiliary differential problem, now involving only space coordinates and thus easily tackled by standard numerical techniques. Explicit, exact expressions for the eddy diffusivities have been calculated, for both asymptotics, for the class of parallel flows, both static and time-dependent. This allows us to investigate analytically the role of gravity and inertia on the diffusion process by varying relevant features of the carrier flow, such as the form of its temporal correlation function. Our results exclude a universal role played by gravity and inertia on the diffusive behaviour: regimes of both enhanced and reduced diffusion may exist, depending on the detailed structure of the carrier flow.

A dispersion relation is set up for transverse waves in a plasma with an ellipsoidal velocity distribution. It is shown that the most unstable wave has its wavenormal parallel to the shortest axis of the ellipsoid and its vector potential parallel or anti-parallel to the longest axis. The maximum possible amplification rate is then calculated. Ellipsoidal velocity distributions arise in any flow with an anisotropic pressure tensor. If the resulting instability leads to a microscopic redistribution of particle velocities, then the effective transport coefficients of the plasma are changed. In Particular it is shown that the effective viscosity is decreased, and becomes dependent on the local gradient of the macroscopic velocity.

The instability of a liquid layer coating the surface of a thin cylindrical wire is studied experimentally and numerically with negligible gravity effects. The initial uniform film is obtained as the residual of a sliding drop, and the thickness measurements are performed with an anamorphic optical system that compresses the vertical scale (allowing to observe several wavelengths) and widens the horizontal one (to follow in detail the evolution of local minima and maxima). Experimental timelines showing the growth and position of the maxima and minima are compared with linear theory and fully nonlinear simulations. A primary mode grows in the early stages of the instability, and its wavelength λ1 is not always in agreement with that corresponding to the maximum growth rate predicted by the linear theory λm. In later stages, a secondary mode appears, whose wavelength is half that of the primary mode. The behaviour of the secondary mode allows us to classify the experimental results into two cases, depending on whether it is linearly stable (case I) or unstable (case II). In case I, the amplitude of the secondary mode remains small compared with that of the primary one, while in case II both amplitudes may become very similar at the end. Thus, the distance between the final drops may be quite different from that seen between initial protuberances. The analysis of the experiments allows us to define a simple criterion based on the comparison between λ1 and λm. Contrary to the predictions of widely used previous quasi-static theories, experiments show that the relation between maximum and minimum of the primary mode is better approximated by a kinematic model based on the assumption that primary maxima increase as fast as the minima decrease. Numerical simulations confirm this hypothesis.

Following the recent observation that turbulent pipe flow can be relaminarised by a relatively simple modification of the mean velocity profile, we here carry out a quantitative experimental investigation of this phenomenon. Our study confirms that a flat velocity profile leads to a collapse of turbulence and in order to achieve the blunted profile shape, we employ a moving pipe segment that is briefly and rapidly shifted in the streamwise direction. The relaminarisation threshold and the minimum shift length and speeds are determined as a function of Reynolds number. Although turbulence is still active after the acceleration phase, the modulated profile possesses a severely decreased lift-up potential as measured by transient growth. As shown, this results in an exponential decay of fluctuations and the flow relaminarises. While this method can be easily applied at low to moderate flow speeds, the minimum streamwise length over which the acceleration needs to act increases linearly with the Reynolds number.

We consider an infinite plate being withdrawn (at an angle α to the horizontal, with a constant velocity U) from an infinite pool of viscous liquid. Assuming that the effects of inertia and surface tension are weak, Derjaguin (C. R. Dokl. Acad. Sci. URSS, vol. 39, 1943, p. 13.) conjectured that the ‘load’ l, i.e. the thickness of the liquid film clinging to the plate, is l=(μU/ρgsinα)1/2, where ρ and μ are the liquid's density and viscosity, and g is the acceleration due to gravity.

In the present work, the above formula is derived from the Stokes equations in the limit of small slopes of the plate (without this assumption, the formula is invalid). It is shown that the problem has infinitely many steady solutions, all of which are stable – but only one of these corresponds to Derjaguin's formula. This particular steady solution can only be singled out by matching it to a self-similar solution describing the non-steady part of the film between the pool and the film's ‘tip’.

Even though the near-pool region where the steady state has been established expands with time, the upper, non-steady part of the film (with its thickness decreasing towards the tip) expands faster and, thus, occupies a larger portion of the plate. As a result, the mean thickness of the film is 1.5 times smaller than the load.

Vortices in stably stratified fluids generally have a pancake shape with a small vertical thickness compared with their horizontal size. In order to understand what mechanism determines their minimum thickness, the linear stability of an axisymmetric pancake vortex is investigated as a function of its aspect ratio $\alpha $, the horizontal Froude number ${F}_{h} $, the Reynolds number $\mathit{Re}$ and the Schmidt number $\mathit{Sc}$. The vertical vorticity profile of the base state is chosen to be Gaussian in both radial and vertical directions. The vortex is unstable when the aspect ratio is below a critical value, which scales with the Froude number: ${\alpha }_{c} \sim 1. 1{F}_{h} $ for sufficiently large Reynolds numbers. The most unstable perturbation has an azimuthal wavenumber either $m= 0$, $\vert m\vert = 1$ or $\vert m\vert = 2$ depending on the control parameters. We show that the threshold corresponds to the appearance of gravitationally unstable regions in the vortex core due to the thermal wind balance. The Richardson criterion for shear instability based on the vertical shear is never satisfied alone. The dominance of the gravitational instability over the shear instability is shown to hold for a general class of pancake vortices with angular velocity of the form $\tilde {\Omega } (r, z)= \Omega (r)f(z)$ provided that $r\partial \Omega / \partial r\lt 3\Omega $ everywhere. Finally, the growth rate and azimuthal wavenumber selection of the gravitational instability are accounted well by considering an unstably stratified viscous and diffusive layer in solid body rotation with a parabolic density gradient.

We apply the J-integral to free-boundary flows in a channel geometry such as viscous fingering or blob injection in Hele-Shaw cells, void propagation in electromigration, and injection of air bubbles into inviscid liquids. The theory of that and related conservation integrals, developed in elasticity, is outlined in a way that is applicable to fluid mechanics problems. Depending on the boundary conditions, for infinite bubbles in Laplacian fields we are able to use the J-integral to predict finger width if such solutions exist or to predict that there are no solutions. For finite sized bubbles, bounds can sometimes be derived. In the case of Hele-Shaw flows, in which solutions appear as a continuum, finger width cannot be constrained, but we do obtain a new derivation and generalization of Richardson moment conservation. Applications to vortex motion are also outlined briefly.

The fully developed flow in a vertical cavity or duct subject to horizontal heating is considered. Solutions of the Boussinesq equations are obtained for rectangular and elliptic sections, in terms of Fourier series and polynomials, respectively. Both generalize the familiar odd-symmetric cubic profile of the plane cavity. Uniqueness is demonstrated under the restriction that the flow is independent of height. For cavities with rectangular sections, it is predicted and verified that the flow in the plane of spanwise symmetry is practically independent of the span if this exceeds 1.7 times the breadth.

Heat transfer from a cylinder placed symmetrically in a constant shear field is considered experimentally for low values of the shear Reynolds number, but for Péclet numbers Pe as large as 2000. With the cylinder held stationary, the experimentally obtained Nusselt number Nu is found to be in excellent agreement with the theoretically derived asymptotic expression, $Nu = 1.641 Pe^{\frac{1}{3}} (Pe \rightarrow \infty)$, for Péclet numbers in excess of 100. In contrast, with the cylinder rotating at a speed corresponding to zero torque, the Nusselt number becomes effectively independent of the Péclet number for Pe > 70. This surprising behaviour, predicted theoretically by Frankel & Acrivos (1968), results from the presence of a region consisting entirely of closed streamlines which surrounds the freely rotating cylinder.

The non-linear and linear ‘shallow-water’ theories, which describe long gravity waves on the free surface of an inviscid liquid, are extended to the case of an electrically conducting liquid on a horizontal bottom, in the presence of a vertical magnetic field. The dish holding the liquid, and the medium outside it, are assumed to be non-conducting. The approximate equations are based on a small ratio of depth to wavelength, on the properties of mercury, and on a moderate magnetic field strength. These equations have a ‘magneto-hydraulic’ character, for in the shallow liquid layer the horizontal fluid velocity and current density are independent of the vertical co-ordinate.

Some explicit solutions of the linear equations are obtained for plane flows and for axi-symmetric flows in which the velocity vector lies in a vertical, meridional plane. The amplitudes of waves in a dish, and the amplitudes behind wave fronts progressing into undisturbed liquid, are found to be exponentially damped, the mechanical energy associated with a disturbance being dissipated by Joule heating.

The approximate non-linear equations for plane flow are studied by means of characteristic variables, and it appears that, because of the magnetic damping effect, there is less qualitative difference between solutions of the non-linear and linear approximate equations at large times than is the case when the magnetic field is absent. In particular, the characteristic curves depart only a finite distance from their ‘undisturbed positions’.