Does the harbour of an artificial island need a bottom? The excitation of waves inside a partially immersed open circular cylinder is considered. An incident plane wave is expanded in Bessel functions and for each mode the problem is formulated in terms of the radial displacement on the cylindrical interface below the cylinder. The solution is obtainable either from an infinite set of simultaneous equations or from an integral equation. It is shown that the phase of the solution is independent of depth and resonances are found at wave-numbers close to those of free oscillations in a cylinder extending to the bottom. If the resonances of the cylinder are made sharper (by increasing the depth of immersion) the peak response of the harbour increases, but the response to a continuous spectrum remains approximately constant. Numerical results are obtained by minimizing the least squares error of a finite number N of simultaneous equations. Convergence is slow, but the error is roughly proportional to 1/N and this is exploited. The solution obtained from a variational formulation using the incoming wave as a trial function is found to give a very good approximation for small wave-numbers, but is increasingly inaccurate for large wave-numbers. Away from resonance the amplitude of the harbour oscillation is less than 10% of the amplitude of the incoming wave provided the depth of the cylinder is greater than about ¼ wavelength, and it is argued that in practice at the resonant wave-number oscillations excited through the bottom of the harbour will leak out through the entrance before they can reach large amplitudes. In an appendix the excitation of harbour oscillations through the harbour entrance is discussed, and some results of Miles & Munk (1961) on an alleged harbour paradox are re-interpreted.

Aircraft downwash consists initially of a vortex pair descending with its accompanying fluid through the atmosphere. Condensation trails are formed in exhaust emitted into the accompanying fluid and the shapes of them and their evolution depend on the positions of the engines in relation to the wing tip vortices.

The atmosphere is stably stratified and so the descending accompanying fluid acquires upward buoyancy. Consequently vorticity is generated at the outside of the accompanying fluid and the flow pattern in the vortex pair is altered so as to produce detrainment of its exterior part. So long as any air which is a mixture of accompanying fluid and exterior air is detrained, the vortices remain stable, but the width of the pair decreases and its downward velocity increases with time as a result of the buoyancy. Eventually the upper stagnation point in the motion relative to the vortices begins to move upwards relative to the vortices so that some mixed fluid is entrained into the circulation and the vortices immediately become unstable, mixing occurs, the pressure in the core rises, and any vortex core trails that may exist appear to burst.

The motion produces downward-thrust blobs in trails from centrally placed engines, which correspond to the holes sometimes seen in cloud when distrails are formed.

The equations of motion and energy governing a three-dimensional fluctuating flow of an incompressible fluid in the vicinity of a stagnation point on a regular surface have been integrated analytically. The velocity of the oncoming flow relative to the body oscillates in magnitude but not in direction.

It has also been shown that the analysis of Lighthill for the two-dimensional fluctuating flow may be extended to the three-dimensional flow (both chordwise and spanwise), namely for each point on the body there is a critical frequency ω0 such that for frequencies ω > ω0 the oscillations are to a close approximation ordinary ‘shear waves’, unaffected by the mean flow; the phase advance in the skin friction is then 45°. For frequencies ω < ω0 the oscillations may be closely approximated by the sum of two parts: one quasi-steady part and the other proportional to the acceleration of the oncoming stream. The phase advance in the skin friction is then tan−1 (ω/ω0).

The time-mean characteristics of the laminar boundary layer near a two-dimensional stagnation point, when the velocity of the oncoming flow relative to the body oscillates are investigated analytically. First, when the amplitude of the oscillating velocity is small compared with the oncoming flow velocity, a series expansion is made and the obtained equations are solved numerically. The equations are also solved approximately in the extreme cases when the frequency is low and high. The obtained approximate solutions are compared with the numerical solutions in terms of skin friction. Next, when the frequency is high, the finite-velocity-amplitude case is treated. Time-mean velocity profiles and skin friction are obtained and compared with the small-amplitude case.

An analytic relation is derived for the shock front velocity as a function of the initial parameters (pressure, density, and particle velocity) in a continuous, in-homogeneous medium. This relation was verified experimentally by using it to predict the propagation of a shock wave through a known rarefaction wave.

Cheng's analysis of strong viscous interaction between a laminar boundary layer growing over a flat plate and the external hypersonic flow field is extended to cover curved surfaces. It is demonstrated that the solutions for some concave surfaces are oscillatory and quantitatively unrealistic. The reason for this behaviour is that the Busemann term in the Newton–Busemann pressure law used in Cheng's analysis over-corrects for centrifugal effects. The removal of the Busemann term or the substitution of the tangent-wedge pressure law results in an alternative analysis which can cover both strong and weak viscous interaction over a wide variety of two-dimensional shapes. A number of examples are included together with comparative experimental data.

A general theory is presented which describes disturbances generated by large amplitude, high frequency pulses in stratified media. The theory is used to discuss large amplitude, but shockless, acoustic pulses propagating under the influence of a constant gravity force into an atmosphere which need not be in thermal equilibrium before their arrival.

The modulating influences of pressure and temperature stratification on the amplitudes of such pulses as they move towards or away from earth are described in detail.

The paper generalizes techniques already established by Whitham (1956) so that they are applicable to disturbances of any amplitude.

The astrophysical importance of the hypothesis that vorticity is expelled from regions of strong turbulence is briefly reviewed. An experiment from which Gough & Lynden-Bell claimed to provide positive evidence of vorticity expulsion has been repeated. The results are reproduced here and are shown to be due to thermally driven circulation currents. No unambiguous laboratory evidence for (or against) the vorticity expulsion hypothesis therefore exists at present.

Energy and linear limits are calculated for the Poiseuille–Couette spiral motion between concentric cylinders which rotate rigidly and rotate and slide relative to one another. The addition of solid rotation can bring the linear limit down to the energy limit with coincidence achieved in the limit of infinitely fast rotation. If the differential rotation is also added, the solid rotation rate need be only finite to achieve near coincidence. Sufficient conditions for non-existence of sub-linear instability are derived. The basic spiral character of the instability is analysed and the results compared with the experiments of Ludwieg (1964).

The performance of an electromagnetic flowmeter head is assessed in terms of a weight vector W such that the output voltage ∝ ∫ v. Wdτ, where v is the velocity and τ the flowmeter volume. The condition curl W = 0 with W → 0 at ∞ is shown to be necessary and sufficient for the velocity to depend only on the flow rate and not on the flow pattern. A class of such ‘ideal’ meters is described. It is shown that meters with point electrodes can never be ideal but may, with considerable complication of the magnetic field, be made immune to asymmetric velocity-profile variations if the flow is rectilinear.

The equations governing the propagation of small perturbations to plane flow of a viscous incompressible conducting fluid are re-examined with special reference to the case when the constant unperturbed magnetic field and flow velocity are parallel. We use the relationship between two parameters in one equation and, without computations, show the following: If for a non-zero value of the Alfvén number the flow is unstable when the Reynolds and magnetic Reynolds numbers take particular finite values, then, for that value of the Alfvén number, the flow cannot be completely stabilized for all finite Reynolds numbers, when the magnetic Reynolds number is finite. Since for a finite Alfvén number one expects that unstable flow cannot be stabilized for all finite Reynolds numbers, unless the magnetic Reynolds number exceeds some value, we deduce the following: An unstable parallel flow of a finitely conducting fluid cannot be completely stabilized for all finite Reynolds numbers by a constant magnetic field, which is coplanar with the flow.

The acoustic field radiated by a multipole point source positioned near to the surface of a solid sphere is calculated at both low and high frequencies. It is shown that the scattered field at low frequencies is always dipole, but at high frequencies is of the same type as the incident field. The application of the results to the acoustic field radiated by turbulence near a sphere is briefly discussed.

This paper describes theoretical and experimental work carried out at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The main object of the work was to develop a new technique for measuring the structure of fluid turbulence.

A parallel beam of light is passed through the turbulent region, containing refractive index fluctuations, and analyzed on exit by gratings of periodic transmissivity. Two forms of analysis yield (a) the spatial power spectrum of the refractive index fluctuations in the turbulence, and (b) the velocity distribution within the beam aperture. The method does not disturb the fluid physically, does not depend on the existence of a mean flow velocity, and works well in liquids.

One of the limitations of this single-beam method is that it produces information averaged along the path length of the beam in the turbulence, and to overcome this a cross-beam technique, using two beams intersecting at right-angles, has been developed in theory. This method gives the spatial power spectrum of the refractive index fluctuations, as does the single beam method, but the results are characteristic only of the volume of intersection of the beams.

The paper first discusses the theory of the single-beam and crossed-beam techniques, and then experimental results obtained with the single-beam method.

The turbulent region investigated was a rectangular tank of water, heated from below and cooled from above, producing convective turbulence of high Rayleigh number (4·1 × 108), a system difficult to analyze by conventional methods of measurement, such as the hot-wire anemometer.

Spectral density functions (power spectra) of refractive index, and hence in this case temperature fluctuations, have been measured, as have velocity distributions. Statistical analysis of the results also gives useful information about the Eulerian time scale of the turbulent field.