The present investigation of aerofoil self-noise generation and propagation concerns the effects of mean flow and quadrupole sources on the broadband noise that arises from the interaction of turbulent boundary layers with the aerofoil trailing edge and the tonal noise that arises from vortex shedding generated by laminar boundary layers and trailing-edge bluntness. Compressible large-eddy simulations (LES) are conducted for a NACA0012 aerofoil with rounded trailing edge for four flow configurations with different angles of incidence, boundary layer tripping configurations and free-stream Mach numbers. The Reynolds number based on the aerofoil chord is fixed at . The acoustic predictions are performed by the Ffowcs Williams & Hawkings (FWH) acoustic analogy formulation and incorporate convective effects. Surface and volume integrations of dipole and quadrupole source terms appearing in the FWH equation are performed using a three-dimensional wideband multi-level adaptive fast multipole method (FMM) in order to accelerate the calculations of aeroacoustic integrals. In order to validate the numerical solutions, flow simulation and acoustic prediction results are compared to experimental data available in the literature and good agreement is observed in terms of both aerodynamic and aeroacoustic results. For low-Mach-number flows, quadrupole sources can be neglected in the FWH equation and mean flow effects appear only for high frequencies. However, for higher speeds, convection effects are relevant for all frequencies and quadrupole sources have a more pronounced effect for medium and high frequencies. The convective effects are most readily observed in the upstream direction.

An array of closely spaced round buoyant jets interact dynamically due to the pressure field induced by jet entrainment. Mutual jet attraction can result in a significant change in jet trajectories. Jet merging also leads to overlapping of the passive scalar fields associated with the individual jets, resulting in mixing characteristics that are drastically different from those of an independent free jet. A general semi-analytical model for the dynamic interaction of multiple buoyant jets in stagnant ambient conditions is proposed. The external irrotational flow field induced by the buoyant jets is computed by a distribution of point sinks with strength equal to the entrainment per unit length along the unknown jet trajectories and accounting for boundary effects. The buoyant jet trajectories are then determined by an iterative solution of an integral buoyant jet model by tracking the changes in the external entrainment flow and dynamic pressure fields. The velocity and concentration fields of the jet group are obtained by momentum or kinetic energy superposition for merged jets and plumes, respectively. The modelling approach is supported by numerical solution of the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations. The model shows that jet merging and mixing can be significantly affected by jet interactions. Model predictions of the multiple jet trajectories, merging height, as well as the centreline velocity and concentration of the buoyant jet group are in good agreement with experimental data for: (i) a clustered momentum jet group; (ii) a turbulent plume pair; and (iii) a rosette buoyant jet group. Dynamic interactions between a jet group are shown to decrease with the addition of an ambient cross-flow.

The interaction of a weakly viscous solitary wave with a submerged semi-circular cylinder was examined using high-resolution two-dimensional numerical calculations. Two simulations were carried out: (a) as a baseline calculation, the propagation of a solitary wave over uniform depth; and (b) a solitary wave interacting with a submerged semi-circular cylinder. Large-scale simulations were performed to resolve the viscous boundary layers on the free surface, bottom and around the obstacle. Integral measures such as momentum and energy are analysed and compared against analytical approximations. For uniform depth, the loss in momentum and energy arises from the traction caused by the finite length of the domain bottom and the dissipation which is predominantly within the bottom boundary layer, respectively. The force on the cylinder is composed of (form) drag, inertial and hydrostatic components, the last factor arising from gradients in the height of the free surface. Morison’s semi-empirical equation is shown to provide a leading-order description of the force on the semi-circular cylinder. These elevated rates of change (momentum and energy) return to uniform depth values after a short period of time, indicating a localized effect of the obstacle. To interpret the flow field, vorticity, streamline and second invariant of the velocity gradient tensor plots were used to highlight relative thickness of boundary layers, vorticity distribution throughout the domain and stagnation points in the flow.

A new theoretical model is proposed to explore the efficiency of a long array of tidal turbines partially blocking a wide channel cross-section. An idea of scale separation is introduced between the flow around each device (or turbine) and that around the entire array to assume that all device-scale flow events, including ‘far-wake’ mixing behind each device, take place much faster than the horizontal expansion of the flow around the entire array. This assumption makes it possible to model the flow as a combination of two quasi-inviscid problems of different scales, in both of which the conservation of mass, momentum and energy is considered. The new model suggests the following: when turbines block only a small portion of the span of a shallow channel cross-section, there is an optimal intra-turbine spacing to maximize the efficiency (limit of power extraction) for a given channel height and width. The efficiency increases as the spacing is reduced to the optimal value due to the effect of local blockage, but then decreases as the spacing is further reduced due to the effect of array-scale choking, i.e. reduced flow through the entire array. Also, when the channel is infinitely wide, the efficiency depends solely on the local area blockage rather than on the combination of the intra-turbine spacing and the channel height. As the local blockage is increased, the efficiency increases from the Lanchester–Betz limit of 0.593 to another limiting value of 0.798, but then decreases as the local blockage is further increased.