A phase-plane approach is used to determine similarity solutions of the axisymmetric shallow-water equations which represent inwardly propagating, inviscid gravity currents. A Froude number condition characterizes the movement of the front. The unique similarity exponent is found numerically as a function of the frontal Froude number and the height and velocity profiles are presented for three different Froude numbers. The fluid speed and height are seen to increase monotonically towards the front except very close to the front where the height decreases. The maxima in both height and speed increase as the Froude number increases, reflecting the change in ambient resistance.

For the Froude number that has been obtained experimentally for lock-exchange Boussinesq flows ($Fr\,{=}\,1.19$) for which the similarity exponent is 0.859094, the similarity solution is compared to the numerical solution of the initial value problem, obtained recently by Hallworth, Huppert & Ungarish (2003). Our similarity solution compares reasonably well with their integration of the shallow-water equations in the neighbourhood of the front and at times close to collapse (when the front reaches the origin); however, near this point their numerics begin to fail. The solution at collapse and the similarity solution after collapse are also found for $Fr\,{=}\,1.19$. This similarity solution describes the formation of a shock, as well as its initial propagation.

This paper considers the evolution of smooth, two-dimensional vortices subject to a rotating external strain field, which generates regions of recirculating, cat's eye stream line topology within a vortex. When the external strain field is smoothly switched off, the cat's eyes may persist, or they may disappear as the vortex relaxes back to axisymmetry. A numerical study obtains criteria for the persistence of cat's eyes as a function of the strength and time scale of the imposed strain field, for a Gaussian vortex profile.

In the limit of a weak external strain field and high Reynolds number, the disturbance decays exponentially, with a rate that is linked to a Landau pole of the linear inviscid problem. For stronger strain fields, but not strong enough to give persistent cat's eyes, the exponential decay of the disturbance varies: as time increases the decay slows down, because of the nonlinear feedback on the mean profile of the vortex. This is confirmed by determining the decay rate given by the Landau pole for these modified profiles. For strain fields strong enough to generate persistent cat's eyes, their location and rotation rate are determined for a range of angular velocities of the external strain field, and are again linked to Landau poles of the mean profiles, modified through nonlinear effects.

The modal structure of the swept Hiemenz flow, a model for the flow near the attachment line of a swept wing, consists of eigenfunctions which exhibit (super-)exponential or algebraic decay as the wall-normal coordinate tends to infinity. The subset of algebraically decaying modes corresponds to parts of the spectrum which are characterized by a significant sensitivity to numerical discretization. Numerical evidence further suggests that a continuous spectrum covering a two-dimensional range of the complex plane exists. We investigate the family of uniform swept Hiemenz modes using eigenvalue computations, numerical simulations and the concept of wave packet pseudo-modes. Three distinct branches of the family of algebraically decaying eigenmodes are identified. They can be superimposed to produce wavefronts propagating towards or away from the boundary layer and standing or travelling wave packets in the free stream. Their role in the exchange of information between the free stream and the attachment-line boundary layer for the swept Hiemenz flow is discussed. The concept of wave packet pseudo-modes has been critical in the analysis of this problem and is expected to lead to further insights into other shear flows in semi- or bi-infinite domains.

We show how the variational formulation introduced by Doering & Constantin to rigorously bound the long-time-averaged total dissipation rate [ ] in turbulent shear flows can be extended to treat other long-time-averaged functionals lim supT→∞(1/T)×∫0Tf(D, Dm, Dv)dt of the total dissipation D, dissipation in the mean field Dm and dissipation in the fluctuation field Dv. Attention is focused upon the suite of functionals f = D(Dv/Dm)n and f = Dm(Dv/Dm)n (n [ges ] 0) which include the ‘efficiency’ functional f = D(Dv/Dm) (Malkus & Smith 1989; Smith 1991) and the dissipation in the mean flow f = Dm (Malkus 1996) as special cases. Complementary lower estimates of the rigorous bounds are produced by generalizing Busse's multiple-boundary-layer trial function technique to the appropriate Howard–Busse variational problems built upon the usual assumption of statistical stationarity and constraints of total power balance, mean momentum balance, incompressibility and boundary conditions. The velocity field that optimizes the ‘efficiency’ functional is found not to capture the asymptotic structure of the observed mean flow in either plane Couette flow or plane Poiseuille flow. However, there is evidence to suppose that it is ‘close’ to a neighbouring functional that may.

The pulsed-wire anemometer has enabled velocity measurements to be made in a variety of unsteady turbulent flows. So far the use of the instrument has been confined to the determination of mean velocity, turbulence intensity and probability density. Here we show how spectral information can also be obtained. The instrument provides estimates of the velocity by measuring the time of flight of a heated flow tracer. Periodic samples of velocity can be generated by driving the anemometer with a regular train of pulses, but unfortunately it is not possible to pulse the heater at a rate greater than about 50 or so times per second, without risk of burning out the wire. This limits the spectral information that can be obtained to situations where all the energy occurs at frequencies below 25 Hz. The random sampling scheme used here avoids the aliasing problem inherent in periodic sampling and enables estimates of power spectral density to be formed up to frequencies many times the average sampling rate. This technique is used to obtain spectral estimates of the velocity fluctuations that arise at various locations in the wake of a flat plate.

We investigate the nonlinear equilibration of magnetic fields in a smooth helical flow at large Reynolds number Re and magnetic Reynolds number Rm with Re[Gt ]Rm[Gt ]1. We start with a smooth spiral Couette flow driven by boundary conditions. Such flows act as dynamos, that is are unstable to growing magnetic fields; here we disregard purely hydrodynamic instabilities such as Taylor–Couette modes. The dominant feedback from a magnetic field mode is only on the mean flow and this yields a simplified ‘mean-flow system’ consisting of one magnetic mode and the mean flow, which we solve numerically. We also obtain the asymptotic structure of the equilibrated fields for weakly and strongly nonlinear regimes. In particular the field tends to concentrate in a cylindrical shell where all stretching and differential rotation is suppressed by the Lorentz force, and the fluid is in solid-body motion. This shell is bounded by thin diffusive layers where the stretching that maintains the field against diffusive decay is dominant.

The low-frequency character of two model problems is exploited in order to illustrate the acoustic consequences of the interactions between chemically reacting (or relaxing) inhomogeneities and flames or constrictions in ducts. The monopole of the former is associated with heat transfer in a fluid which exhibits variations in its specific heats, while in the latter there is an extension of the classical phenomenon associated with the pulsations of an inhomogeneity of the fluid compressibility. This second mechanism is found to be insignificant, but the heat-conduction source is considered to be very powerful at sufficiently low Mach numbers; in fact, to first order it is independent of the flow Mach number for laminar, as well as a certain class of turbulent, flows.

Using an electrically driven shock tube with initial pressures of 0.1 to 1.0 mm Hg and shock speeds of about Mach 12 to 15, the resistance of an air plasma between two parallel probes has been measured by two different techniques and the results compared. In one, external voltages of from 0 to 100 V were applied to the probes and in the other, electromagnetically induced voltages of from 0 to 25 V were produced by the plasma's motion in a magnetic field of up to 3500 G. In either case the resistance was found to decrease as the current flow increased and was consistent with the equilibrium electronic conductivity of the air plasma at high current densities.

The flow of a viscous compressible fluid in a circular tube generated by a sudden impulse at a point on the axis is studied on the basis of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations. A no-slip boundary condition is assumed to hold on the wall of the tube. Owing to the finite velocity of sound the flow behaviour differs qualitatively from that of an incompressible fluid. The flow velocity and the pressure disturbance at any fixed point different from the source point vanish at short time and decay at long times with a t−3/2 power law.

This paper concerns the boundary layer on a semi-infinite flat plate in a uniform stream of conducting fluid, with magnetic field in the stream direction. It is found that when β, the square of the ratio of the Alfvén speed to the undisturbed fluid speed, is slightly less than unity, two solutions of the Greenspan-Carrier equations governing the motion exist for ε(= σμν) less than unity.

Thin viscous jets are considered as they slowly fall, in a state of near-neutral buoyancy, through a liquid. An equation is derived which describes the path of the jet. A small perturbation analysis of nearly vertical jets is carried out, and shows that they are necessarily unstable and will eventually deviate significantly from the vertical. Numerical integration of the nonlinear equation describes the nature of this deviation. These results model some experimental observations made by Taylor (1969).

An X-ray attenuation technique is used to obtain the local concentration of spherical particles in a polydisperse suspension as a function of vertical position and time. From these experimental data, the average velocity of sedimentation in the homogeneous part of the suspension is derived by considering the variation with time of the total volume of particles located above a given fixed horizontal plane. Measurements have been performed in suspensions of particles which differ from each other in size with a total volume concentration in particles between 0.13% and 2.5%, and also in suspensions of particles which differ from each other both in size and in density, the total volume concentration being 2%. For the first kind of suspension, the experimental hindered settling factor is plotted versus the concentration and a linear regression analysis provides the slope with its 90% confidence limits: Se = −5.3 ± 1.1. This experimental average coefficient of sedimentation is in good agreement with the theoretical average coefficient St = −5.60 obtained from the results of Batchelor & Wen (1982). The second kind of suspension, for which permanent doublets of spheres may theoretically exist, is not in the range of validity of Batchelor & Wen's results. The experimental average coefficient of sedimentation for this case is found to be much larger than the prediction obtained by extrapolating Batchelor & Wen's results out of their range of validity. This increased velocity may be experimental evidence of the existence of permanent doublets.

Strong forcing was used to produce vortex pairing in a submerged axisymmetric water jet. Phase-averaged hot-wire measurements were combined with phase-averaged flow visualization to identify the relevant nonlinear interactions. The leading resonant interaction was not a subharmonic resonance. Instead it was a triad resonance involving the subharmonic, the fundamental and the 3/2 harmonic. The profound influence of higher harmonics on the amplification of the fundamental and subharmonic was demonstrated in a systematic way by successive truncation of the Fourier series representation of the excitation waveform.

We consider the Rayleigh–Taylor instability problem of two initially stationary immiscible viscous fluids positioned with the denser above the less dense in a finite circular cylinder, such that their starting fluid–fluid interface is the horizontal midplane of the cylinder. The ensuing linear instability problem has a five-dimensional parameter space – defined by the density ratio, the viscosity ratio, the cylinder aspect ratio, the surface tension between the fluids and the ratio of viscous to gravitational time scales – of which we explore only part, motivated by recent experiments where viscous fluids exchange in vertical tubes (Beckett et al., J. Fluid Mech., 2011, vol. 682, pp. 652–670). We find that for these experiments, the instability is invariably ‘side-by-side’ (of azimuthal wavenumber 1 type) but we also uncover parameter regions where the preferred instability is axisymmetric. The fact that both ‘core-annular’ (axisymmetric) and ‘side-by-side’ (asymmetric) long-time flows are seen experimentally highlights the fact that the initial Rayleigh–Taylor instability of the interface does not determine the long-time flow configuration in these situations. Finally, long-time flow solutions are presented on the basis that they will be slowly varying fingering solutions.

A model devised by Thorpe & Li (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 758, 2014, pp. 94–120) that predicts the conditions in which stationary turbulent hydraulic jumps can occur in the flow of a continuously stratified layer over a horizontal rigid bottom is applied to, and its results compared with, observations made at several locations in the ocean. The model identifies two positions in the Samoan Passage at which hydraulic jumps should occur and where changes in the structure of the flow are indeed observed. The model predicts the amplitude of changes and the observed mode 2 form of the transitions. The predicted dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy is also consistent with observations. One location provides a particularly well-defined example of a persistent hydraulic jump. It takes the form of a 390 m thick and 3.7 km long mixing layer with frequent density inversions separated from the seabed by some 200 m of relatively rapidly moving dense water, thus revealing the previously unknown structure of an internal hydraulic jump in the deep ocean. Predictions in the Red Sea Outflow in the Gulf of Aden are relatively uncertain. Available data, and the model predictions, do not provide strong support for the existence of hydraulic jumps. In the Mediterranean Outflow, however, both model and data indicate the presence of a hydraulic jump.

Linear perturbation analyses of zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers at subcritical Reynolds numbers predict that transient disturbance amplification can take place due to the lift-up mechanism. Upstream, streamwise-elongated vortices yield the largest response per unit of inflow disturbance energy, which takes the form of streamwise-elongated streaks. In this work, we compute the linear and also nonlinear inflow disturbances that generate the largest response inside the boundary layer, for flow over a thin flat plate with a slender leading edge. In order to compare our results with earlier linear analyses, we constrain the inlet disturbance to be monochromatic in time, or a single frequency. The boundary layer effectively filters high frequencies, and only low-frequency perturbations induce a strong response downstream. The low-frequency optimal inflow disturbance has a spanwise wavenumber that scales with $\sqrt{Re}$, and it consists of streamwise and normal vorticity components: the latter is tilted around the leading edge into the streamwise direction and, further downstream, generates streaks. While none of the computed monochromatic disturbances alone can lead to breakdown to turbulence, secondary instability analyses demonstrate that the streaky base state is unstable. Nonlinear simulations where the inflow disturbance is supplemented with additional white noise undergo secondary instability and breakdown to turbulence.

The methods of formal matched asymptotics are used to investigate the motion of a vortex in shallow inviscid fluid of varying depth and zero Froude number in the limit as the vortex core radius tends to zero. To leading order the vortex is driven by local gradients in the logarithm of the depth along an isobath (or depth contour). A further term in the vortex velocity is calculated in which effects arising from the global bottom topography, other vortices and the vortex core structure appear. The evolution of the vortex core structure is then calculated. A point-vortex model is formulated which describes the motion of a number of small vortices in terms of the bottom topography, the inviscid flows around the vortices and their evolving core structure. A numerical method for solving this model is discussed and finally some numerical simulations of the motion of vortex pairs over a varying bottom topography are presented.

We develop perturbation theories to describe the flow dynamics of a droplet with a thin layer of insoluble surfactant whose mechanics are described by interfacial viscosity, i.e. a Boussinesq–Scriven constitutive law. The theories quantify droplet deformation in the limit of small capillary number, large viscosity ratio, or large shear Boussinesq number, to a sufficient level of approximation where one can extract information about nonlinear rheology and droplet breakup. In the first part of this manuscript, we quantify the Taylor deformation parameter and inclination angle in shear and extensional flows, developing expressions that resolve discrepancies between current analytical theories and boundary element simulations. Interestingly, the theories we develop appear to accurately describe the inclination angle of a clean droplet over a wider range of viscosity ratios and capillary numbers than previous works. In the second part of the manuscript, we calculate how interfacial viscosity alters the extra stress of a dilute suspension of droplets, in particular the shear stress, normal stress differences, shear thinning and extensional thickening. The normal stresses are intimately related to the lateral migration of droplets in wall-bound shear flow, and we explore the influence of interfacial viscosity on this phenomenon. We conclude by discussing how one can use these theories to describe droplet breakup, and how one can incorporate additional effects into the perturbation theories such as viscoelastic membranes and/or Marangoni flows.