We consider the evolution of weakly nonlinear dispersive long waves in a rotating channel. The governing equations are derived and approximate solutions obtained for the initial data corresponding to a Kelvin wave. In consequence of the small nonlinear speed correction it is shown that weakly nonlinear Kelvin waves are unstable to a direct nonlinear resonance with the linear Poincaré modes of the channel. Numerical solutions of the governing equations are computed and found to give good agreement with the approximate analytical solutions. It is shown that the curvature of the wavefront and the decay of the leading wave amplitude along the channel are attributable to the Poincaré waves generated by the resonance. These results appear to give a qualitative explanation of the experimental results of Maxworthy (1983), and Renouard, Chabert d'Hières & Zhang (1987).

The problem of the slow viscous flow of a fluid through a random porous medium is considered. The macroscopic Darcy's law, which defines the fluid permeability k, is first derived in an ensemble-average formulation using the method of homogenization. The fluid permeability is given explicitly in terms of a random boundary-value problem. General variational principles, different to ones suggested earlier, are then formulated in order to obtain rigorous upper and lower bounds on k. These variational principles are applied by evaluating them for four different types of admissible fields. Each bound is generally given in terms of various kinds of correlation functions which statistically characterize the microstructure of the medium. The upper and lower bounds are computed for flow interior and exterior to distributions of spheres.

Many of the most interesting phenomena observed to occur in the flow of rotating and stratified fluids past obstacles, for example eddy shedding and wake unsteadiness, are due to separation of the boundary layer on the obstacle or its Taylor column. If the Rossby number of the flow lies between E½ and E (E is the Ekman number) and the Burger number is small, the structure of a viscous shear layer of width E⅙ on the circumscribing cylinder of an axisymmetric obstacle controls the inviscid flow. The surface boundary layer is not an Ekman layer, but a Prandtl layer, even at small Rossby numbers. As the slope of the obstacle at its base increases, the nature of the inviscid motion is altered substantially, in the rotation-dominated regime. We show that, for sufficiently large slopes, the flow develops a small region of non-uniqueness external to the column, simultaneously with the separation of the narrow band of fluid flowing round the base of the object.

Independent pseudo-spectral and Galerkin numerical codes are used to investigate three-dimensional infinite Prandtl number thermal convection of a Boussinesq fluid in a spherical shell with constant gravity and an inner to outer radius ratio equal to 0.55. The shell is heated entirely from below and has isothermal, stress-free boundaries. Nonlinear solutions are validated by comparing results from the two codes for an axisymmetric solution at Rayleigh number Ra = 14250 and three fully three-dimensional solutions at Ra = 2000, 3500 and 7000 (the onset of convection occurs at Ra = 712). In addition, the solutions are compared with the predictions of a slightly nonlinear analytic theory. The axisymmetric solution is equatorially symmetric and has two convection cells with upwelling at the poles. Two dominant planforms of convection exist for the three-dimensional solutions: a cubic pattern with six upwelling cylindrical plumes, and a tetrahedral pattern with four upwelling plumes. The cubic and tetrahedral patterns persist for Ra at least up to 70000. Time dependence does not occur for these solutions for Ra [les ] 70000, although for Ra > 35000 the solutions have a slow asymptotic approach to steady state. The horizontal and vertical structure of the velocity and temperature fields, and the global and three-dimensional heat flow characteristics of the various solutions are investigated for the two patterns up to Ra = 70000. For both patterns at all Ra, the maximum velocity and temperature anomalies are greater in the upwelling regions than in the downwelling ones and heat flow through the upwelling regions is almost an order of magnitude greater than the mean heat flow. The preferred mode of upwelling is cylindrical plumes which change their basic shape with depth. Downwelling occurs in the form of connected two-dimensional sheets that break up into a network of broad plumes in the lower part of the spherical shell. Finally, the stability of the two patterns to reversal of flow direction is tested and it is found that reversed solutions exist only for the tetrahedral pattern at low Ra.

The viscous sublayer of a turbulent boundary layer on a surface with fine longitudinal ribs (riblets) is investigated theoretically. The mean flow constituent of this viscous flow is considered. Using conformal mapping, the velocity distributions on various surface configurations are calculated. The geometries that were investigated include sawtooth profiles with triangular and trapezoidal grooves as well as profiles with thin blade-shaped ribs, ribs with rounded edges and ribs having sharp ridges and U-shaped grooves. (This latter riblet configuration is also found on the tiny scales of fast sharks.) Our calculations enable us to determine the location of the origin of the velocity profile that lies somewhat below the tips of the ridges. The distance between this origin and the tip of the ridge we call ‘protrusion height’. The upper limit for the protrusion height is found to be 22% of the lateral rib spacing; the coefficient 0.22 being the value of the expression π−1 In 2. This limit is valid for two-dimensional riblet geometries. Analogous experiments with an electrolytic tank are carried out as an additional check on the theoretical calculations. This is also an easy way to determine experimentally the location of the origin of the velocity profile for arbitrary new riblet geometries. A possible connection between protrusion height and drag reduction in a turbulent boundary layer flow is discussed. Finally, the present theory also produces an orthogonal grid pattern above riblet surfaces which may be utilized in future numerical calculations of the whole turbulent boundary layer.

An investigation is made of the sound produced when a rectilinear vortex is cut at right angles to its axis by a non-lifting airfoil of symmetric section. The motions are at sufficiently low Mach number that the wavelength of the sound is large relative to the chord of the airfoil. In these circumstances the airfoil experiences no fluctuating lift during the interaction, and the radiation may be ascribed to an acoustic source of dipole type whose strength is equal to the unsteady drag. It is argued that previous analyses of the related problem of ‘unsteady thickness noise’ have ignored certain terms whose inclusion greatly reduces the predicted intensity of the radiation. A general formula for the surface forces (derived in an appendix) is applied to deduce that the dipole strength is proportional to the square of the circulation of the vortex, and depends on the spanwise acceleration of the vortex induced by images in the airfoil. Numerical results are presented for typical airfoil sections, and a comparison is made with the unsteady lifting noise generated when the axis of the vortex is inclined at a small angle to the normal to the median plane of the airfoil.

Free-surface flows past a submerged triangular obstacle at the bottom of a channel are considered. The flow is assumed to be steady, two-dimensional and irrotational; the fluid is treated as inviseid and incompressible and gravity is taken into account. The problem is solved numerically by series truncation. It is shown that there are solutions for which the flow is suberitical upstream and supercritical downstream and other flows for which the flow is supercritical both upstream and downstream. The latter flows have limiting configurations with a stagnation point on the free surface with a 120° angle at it. It is found that solutions exist for triangular obstacles of arbitrary size. Local solutions are constructed to describe the flow near the apex when the height of the triangular obstacle is infinite.

The spin-up from rest of a contained homogeneous free-surface fluid has been examined in the laboratory for a variety of non-axisymmetric containers. It was found that in the spin-up process three stages can be distinguished before the fluid reaches the ultimate state of rigid-body rotation. When the container starts spinning, the non-axisymmetric lateral tank boundaries induce horizontal pressure gradients, and as a result relative flows arise instantaneously after the start of the experiment. The absolute vorticity of the starting flow is zero, and a description can be given in terms of potential theory. Theoretical solutions have been derived for a number of geometries, and comparison with experimentally observed streamline patterns shows good agreement. In the next stage, flow separation sets in, in most cases leading to locally intense three-dimensional turbulent flows. The basic rotation causes a transition from three-dimensional to two-dimensional motion, and a subsequent organization of the relative flow into a number of cells is observed. During the final stage, the flow in these cells gradually decays owing to the spin-up/spin-down mechanism provided by the Ekman layer at the bottom of each cell, until eventually the fluid is in solid-body rotation.

An isolated strip of anomalous vorticity in a two-dimensional, inviseid, incompressible, unbounded fluid is linearly unstable - or is it? It is pointed out that an imposed uniform shear, opposing the shear due to the isolated strip alone, can prevent all linear instabilities if the imposed shear is of sufficient strength, and that this is highly relevant to current thinking about ‘two-dimensional turbulence’ and related problems. The linear stability result has been known and goes back to Rayleigh, but its implications for the behaviour of the thin strips of vorticity that are a ubiquitous feature of nonlinear two-dimensional flows, as revealed for instance in high-resolution experiments, appear not to have been widely recognized. In particular, these thin strips, or filaments, almost always behave quasi-passively when being wrapped around intense coherent vortices, and do not roll up into strings of miniature vortices as would an isolated strip. Nonlinear calculations presented herein furthermore show that substantially less adverse shear than suggested by linear theory is required to preserve a strip of vorticity. Taken together, and in conjunction with results showing the further stabilizing effect of a large-scale strain field, these results explain the observed quasi-passive behaviour.

Transient effects associated with the deformation and breakup of a drop following a step change from critical to suberitical flow conditions are studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, we consider step changes in both the shear rate and flow type for two-dimensional linear flows generated in a four-roll mill. Numerically we consider step changes in shear rate only for a uniaxial extensional flow. Depending upon the degree of deformation prior to the change in flow conditions, the drop may either return to a steady deformed shape, or continue to stretch at a reduced rate, or, for intermediate cases, the drop may break without large-scale stretching. This behaviour is a consequence of the complicated interaction between changes of shape due to interfacial tension and changes of shape due to the motion of the suspending fluid. This mode of breakup is most pronounced for high viscosity ratios, because very large extensions are necessary to guarantee breakup if the flow is stopped abruptly. For drops that are not too deformed, the sudden addition of vorticity to the external flow is characterized by rapid rotation of the drop to a new steady orientation followed by deformation and/or breakup according to the effective flow conditions at the new orientation. Finally, for viscous drops in flows with vorticity, it is demonstrated experimentally that breakup can be achieved if the initial shape is sufficiently non-spherical even though the same drop could not be made to break in the same flow at any capillary number when beginning with a near-spherical shape.

This study deals with turbulent oscillatory boundary-layer flows over both smooth and rough beds. The free-stream flow is a purely oscillating flow with sinusoidal velocity variation. Mean and turbulence properties were measured mainly in two directions, namely in the streamwise direction and in the direction perpendicular to the bed. Some measurements were made also in the transverse direction. The measurements were carried out up to Re = 6 × 106 over a mirror-shine smooth bed and over rough beds with various values of the parameter a/ks covering the range from approximately 400 to 3700, a being the amplitude of the oscillatory free-stream flow and ks the Nikuradse's equivalent sand roughness. For smooth-bed boundary-layer flows, the effect of Re is discussed in greater detail. It is demonstrated that the boundary-layer properties change markedly with Re. For rough-bed boundary-layer flows, the effect of the parameter a/ks is examined, at large values (O(103)) in combination with large Re.

The dynamics of laser-produced cavitation bubbles near a solid boundary and its dependence on the distance between bubble and wall are investigated experimentally. It is shown by means of high-speed photography with up to 1 million frames/s that jet and counterjet formation and the development of a ring vortex resulting from the jet flow are general features of the bubble dynamics near solid boundaries. The fluid velocity field in the vicinity of the cavitation bubble is determined with time-resolved particle image velocimetry. A comparison of path lines deduced from successive measurements shows good agreement with the results of numerical calculations by Kucera & Blake (1988). The pressure amplitude, the profile and the energy of the acoustic transients emitted during spherical bubble collapse and the collapse near a rigid boundary are measured with a hydrophone and an optical detection technique. Sound emission is the main damping mechanism in spherical bubble collapse, whereas it plays a minor part in the damping of aspherical collapse. The duration of the acoustic transients is 20-30 ns. The highest pressure amplitudes at the solid boundary have been found for bubbles attached to the boundary. The pressure inside the bubble and at the boundary reaches about 2.5 kbar when the maximum bubble radius is 3.5 mm. The results are discussed with respect to the mechanism of cavitation erosion.

Self-excited oscillations arise during flow through a pressurized segment of collapsible tube, for a range of values of the time-independent controlling pressures. They come about either because there is an (unstable) steady flow corresponding to these pressures, or because no steady flow exists. We investigate the existence of steady flow in a one-dimensional collapsible-tube model, which takes account of both longitudinal tension and jet energy loss E downstream of the narrowest point. For a given tube, the governing parameters are flow-rate Q, and transmural pressure P at the downstream end of the collapsible segment. If E = 0, there exists a range of (Q, P)-values for which no solutions exist; when E ≠ 0 a solution is always found. For the case E ≠ 0, predictions are made of pressure drop along the collapsible tube; these solutions are compared with experiment.

This paper describes a quantitative study of the three-dimensional nature of organized motions in a turbulent plane wake. Coherent structures are detected from the instantaneous, spatially phase-correlated vorticity field using certain criteria based on size, strength and geometry of vortical structures. With several combinations of X-wire rakes, vorticity distributions in the spanwise and transverse planes are measured in the intermediate region (10d [les ] x [les ] 40d) of the plane turbulent wake of a circular cylinder at a Reynolds number of 13000 based on the cylinder diameter d. Spatial correlations of smoothed vorticity signals as well as phase-aligned ensemble-averaged vorticity maps over structure cross-sections yield a quantitative measure of the spatial coherence and geometry of organized structures in the fully turbulent field. The data demonstrate that the organized structures in the nominally two-dimensional wake exhibit significant three-dimensionality even in the near field. Using instantaneous velocity and vorticity maps as well as correlations of vorticity distributions in different planes, some topological features of the dominant coherent structures in a plane wake are inferred.

Long's self-similar vortex is known to have two solutions for each supercritical value of the flow force. Each of those solutions is shown here to have a double structure if the flow force is large. We then investigate the inertial instabilities of one of those large-flow-force limit solutions, and find them to be related to the instabilities of the Bickley jet in one régime. However, the swirl in the vortex becomes important for long waves, very strongly modifying the sinuous and varicose Bickley modes. We find in particular that the asymptotic results obtained agree well with our numerical solutions for the sinuous mode, but not for the varicose mode, the difficulty in the latter case being apparently due to mode jumping. The asymptotics show a varicose long-wave neutral mode for positive azimuthal wavenumber, and two such modes for negative wavenumbers. The upper neutral sinuous mode occurs at much, larger wavenumber than in the Bickley case, and its structure is also presented. The study overall is aimed at providing a basis for the investigation of strongly nonlinear effects.

We investigate how two-dimensional turbulence is modified when the incompressibility constraint is removed, by numerically integrating the full Saint-Venant (shallow-water) equations. In the case of small geopotential fluctuations considered here, we find no energy exchange between the inertio-gravitational and the potentio-vortical components of the flow. At small scales, the potentio-vortical component behaves as if the flow were incompressible, while we observe an intense direct energy cascade within the inertio-gravitational component. At large scales, the reverse potentio-vortical energy cascade is reduced when the level of inertio-gravitational energy is high. Looking at the effect of rotation, we find that a fast rotation rate tends to inhibit all three cascades. In particular, the inhibition of the inertio-gravitational energy cascade towards small scales implies that the geostrophic adjustment process is hindered by an increase of rotation. Concerning the structure of the coherent vortices emerging out of these decaying turbulent flows, we observe that the smallest scales are concentrated inside the vortex cores and not on their periphery.

A method is presented for the numerical analysis of the aerodynamic characteristics of a two-dimensional single-surface porous sail. In this analysis the authors apply a series of Jacobi polynomials to express the pressure distribution and chordwise shape, considering carefully leading-edge conditions. It is found that the aero-dynamic stability of a sail increases with increasing porosity. The effects of porosity on the value of the life coefficient and the position of the centre of pressure are shown in diagrams as functions of angle of attack and of excess length of membrane over the chord length.

The interaction of an oblique shock with a laminar boundary layer on an adiabatic flat plate is analysed by solving the Navier-Stokes equations numerically. Mach numbers range from 1.4 to 3.4 and Reynolds numbers range from 105 to 6 × 105. The numerical results agree well with experiments. The pressure distribution at the edge of the boundary layer is proposed as a sensitive indicator of the numerical resolution. Local and global properties of the interaction region are discussed. In the vicinity of the separation point, local scaling laws of the free interaction are confirmed. For the length of the separation bubble a new similarity law reveals a linear influence of the shock strength. A comparison with the triple-deck theory shows that, for finite Reynolds numbers, the triple deck tends to overestimate the lengthscale substantially and that this discrepancy increases with increasing Mach number. The triple-deck model of displacing the main part of the boundary layer is substantiated by the numerical results. An asymmetrical structure within the separation bubble causes a characteristic distribution of the wall shear stress.

Convection of two-dimensional rolls in an infinite horizontal layer of fluid-saturated porous medium heated from below is studied numerically. Several important finite-amplitude states are isolated, and their bifurcation properties are shown. Effects of the temperature-dependent viscosity are included. The stability of these states is investigated with respect to the class of disturbances that have a ½π phase shift relative to the basic state. In particular, the oscillatory mechanism and the mean-flow generating mechanism through the variable viscosity are discussed.

We examine numerically the behaviour of the solutions of the axisymmetric Boussinesq equations in a tall, differentially heated, air-filled annulus. The numerical algorithm integrates the time-dependent equations in primitive variables and combines a pseudospectral Chebyshev spatial expansion with a second-order time-stepping scheme. The instability of the conduction regime is found to be unsteady cross-rolls. By assuming Hopf bifurcation, we can accurately determine the critical Rayleigh number. As the Rayleigh number increases, the solution is monoperiodic at first. Then it undergoes a period-doubling bifurcation. When the Rayleigh number is further increased, the solution reverts to a monocellular steady state through suberitical bifurcations with hysteresis. At even higher Rayleigh number, boundary-layer instability sets in, in the form of travelling waves. This instability has the characteristics of a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. We examine the space-time structure of the two types of unsteady solutions. We have presented the basic periods of the steady oscillations as functions of the Rayleigh number in the vicinity of the Hopf bifurcation points, and have also computed the Nusselt numbers for the various flow regimes.