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Holmboe's instability in exchange flows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2001

DAVID Z. ZHU  and
GREGORY A. LAWRENCE
DAVID Z. ZHU
Affiliation:
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2G7; e-mail: [email protected]
GREGORY A. LAWRENCE
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

A laboratory study of the exchange of two fluids of different density through a constant-width channel with an underwater sill has enabled us to study Holmboe's instability in greater detail than has been possible in mixing-layer experiments. The internal hydraulics of the exchange flow are such that we have been able to observe the initiation of instability, the development and behaviour of both symmetric and asymmetric Holmboe instabilities, and the suppression of the instability at bulk Richardson numbers above about 0.7. A number of stability criteria resulting from previous numerical investigations have been verified experimentally. Our laboratory measurements are consistent with theoretical predictions of wave speed and wavenumber.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 429 , 25 February 2001 , pp. 391 - 409
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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