An additional distant wall is known to highly alter the jetting scenarios of wall-proximal bubbles. Here, we combine high-speed photography and axisymmetric volume of fluid (VoF) simulations to quantitatively describe its role in enhancing the micro-jet dynamics within the directed jet regime (Zeng et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 896, 2020, A28). Upon a favourable agreement on the bubble and micro-jet dynamics, both experimental and simulation results indicate that the micro-jet velocity increases dramatically as $\eta$ decreases, where $\eta =H/R_{max}$ is the distance between two walls $H$ normalized by the maximum bubble radius $R_{max}$. The mechanism is related to the collapsing flow, which is constrained by the distant wall into a reverse stagnation-point flow that builds up pressure near the bubble's top surface and accelerates it into micro-jets. We further derive an equation expressing the micro-jet velocity $U_{jet}=87.94\gamma ^{0.5}(1+(1/3)(\eta -\lambda ^{1.2})^{-2})$, where ${\gamma =d/R_{max}}$ is the stand-off distance to the proximal wall with $d$ the distance between the initial bubble centre and the wall, $\lambda =R_{y,m}/R_{max}$ with $R_{y,m}$ the distance between the top surface and the proximal wall at the bubble's maximum expansion. Viscosity has a minimal impact on the jet velocity for small $\gamma$, where the pressure buildup is predominantly influenced by geometry.

Quantum technologies exploit uniquely quantum behaviour of light and matter to achieve functionalities and performance in applications such as computing, navigation, communications, sensing and imaging that are not achievable by conventional, classical means. These “second-generation” technologies are under rapid development and commercialisation, with an accompanying need for assurance by test and characterisation.

We develop a mean-field model to examine the stability of a ‘quasi-2-D suspension’ of elongated particles embedded within a viscous membrane. This geometry represents several biological and synthetic settings, and we reveal mechanisms by which the anisotropic mobility of particles interacts with long-ranged viscous membrane hydrodynamics. We first show that a system of slender rod-like particles driven by a constant force is unstable to perturbations in concentration – much like sedimentation in analogous 3-D suspensions – so long as membrane viscous stresses dominate. However, increasing the contribution of viscous stresses from the surrounding 3-D fluid(s) suppresses such an instability. We then tie this result to the hydrodynamic disturbances generated by each particle in the plane of the membrane and show that enhancing subphase viscous contributions generates extensional fields that orient neighbouring particles in a manner that draws them apart. The balance of flux of particles aggregating versus separating then leads to a wave number selection in the mean-field model.

Polymer chains in turbulent flows are generally modelled as dumbbells, i.e. two beads joined by a nonlinear spring. The dumbbell only maps a single spatial configuration, described by the polymer end-to-end vector, thus a multi-bead FENE (finitely extensible nonlinear elastic) chain seems a natural improvement for a more accurate characterisation of the polymer spatial conformation. At a large Weissenberg number, a comparison with the more accurate Kuhn chain reveals that the multi-bead FENE chain drastically overestimates the probability of folded configurations. Surprisingly, the dumbbell turns out to be the only meaningful bead-spring model to coarse-grain a polymer macromolecule in turbulent pipe flows.

The linear stability of the Stuart vortices, which is a model of arrays of vortices often observed in the atmosphere and the oceans, in rotating stratified fluids is investigated by local and modal stability analysis. As in the case of the two-dimensional (2-D) Taylor–Green vortices, five types of instability appear in general: the pure-hyperbolic instability, the strato-hyperbolic instability, the rotational-hyperbolic instability, the centrifugal instability and the elliptic instability. The condition for each instability and the estimate of the growth rate derived by Hattori & Hirota (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 967, 2023, A32) are shown to also be useful for the Stuart vortices, which supports their applicability to general flows. The properties of each instability depend on stratification and rotation in a way similar to the case of the 2-D Taylor–Green vortices. For the Stuart vortices, however, the centrifugal instability and the elliptic instability become more dominant than the three hyperbolic instabilities in comparison to the 2-D Taylor–Green vortices; this is explained by the larger ratios of the maximum vorticity and the strain rate at the elliptic stagnation points to the strain rate at the hyperbolic stagnation points. Direct correspondence between the modal and local stability results is further established by comparing unstable modes to solutions to the local stability equations; this is useful for identifying the types of modes since the mechanism of instability is readily known in the local stability analysis. This helps us to discover the modes of the ring-type elliptic instability, which have been predicted only theoretically.

Insects flip their wings around each stroke reversal and may enhance lift in the early stage of a half-stroke. The possible lift-enhancing mechanism of this rapid wing rotation and its strong connection with wake vortices are still underexplored, especially when unsteady leading-edge vortex (LEV) behaviours occur. Here, we numerically studied the lift generation and underlying vorticity dynamics during the rapid rotation of a low aspect ratio flapping wing at a Reynolds number (${\textit {Re}}$) of 1500. Our findings prove that when the outboard LEV breaks down, an advanced rotation can still enhance the lift in the early stage of a half-stroke, which originates from an interaction with the breakdown vortex in the outboard region. This interaction, named the breakdown-vortex jet mechanism, results in a jet and thus a higher pressure on the upwind surface, including a stronger wingtip suction force on the leeward surface. Although the stable LEV within the mid-span retains its growth and location during an advanced rotation, it can be detrimental to lift enhancement as it moves underneath the wing. Therefore, for a flapping wing at ${\textit {Re}}\sim 10^3$, the interactions with stable and breakdown leading-edge vortices lead to the single-vortex suction and breakdown-vortex jet mechanisms, respectively. In other words, the contribution of wing–wake interaction depends on the spanwise location. The current work also implies the importance of wing kinematics to this wing–wake interaction in flapping wings, and provides an alternative perspective for understanding this complex flow phenomenon at ${\textit {Re}}\sim 10^3$.