The optimum shape problems considered in this part are for those profiles of a two-dimensional flexible plate in time-harmonic motion that will minimize the energy loss under the condition of fixed thrust and possibly also under other isoperimetric constraints. First, the optimum movement of a rigid plate is completely determined; it is necessary first to reduce the original singular quadratic form representing the energy loss to a regular one of a lower order, which is then tractable by usual variational methods. A favourable range of the reduced frequency is found in which the thrust contribution coming from the leading-edge suction is as small as possible under the prescribed conditions, outside of which this contribution becomes so large as to be hard to realize in practice without stalling. This optimum solution is compared with the recent theory of Lighthill (1970); these independently arrived-at conclusions are found to be virtually in agreement.

The present theory is further applied to predict the movement of a porpoise tail of large aspect-ratio and is found in satisfactory agreement with the experimental measurements. A qualitative discussion of the wing movement in flapping flight of birds is also given on the basis of optimum efficiency.

The optimum shape of a flexible plate is analysed for the most general case of infinite degrees of freedom. It is shown that the solution can be determined to a certain extent, but the exact shape is not always uniquely determinate.

A numerical method is developed for nonlinear three-dimensional but axisymmetric free-surface problems using a mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian scheme under the assumption of potential flow. Taking advantage of axisymmetry, Rankine ring sources are used in a Green's theorem boundary-integral formulation to solve the field equation; and the free surface is then updated in time following Lagrangian points. A special treatment of the free surface and body intersection points is generalized to this case which avoids the difficulties associated with the singularity there. To allow for long-time simulations, the nonlinear computational domain is matched to a transient linear wavefield outside. When the matching boundary is placed at a suitable distance (depending on wave amplitude), numerical simulations can, in principle, be continued indefinitely in time. Based on a simple stability argument, a regriding algorithm similar to that of Fink & Soh (1974) for vortex sheets is generalized to free-surface flows, which removes the instabilities experienced by earlier investigators and eliminates the need for artificial smoothing. The resulting scheme is very robust and stable.

For illustration, three computational examples are presented: (i) the growth and collapse of a vapour cavity near the free surface; (ii) the heaving of a floating vertical cylinder starting from rest; and (iii) the heaving of an inverted vertical cone. For the cavity problem, there is excellent agreement with available experiments. For the wave-body interaction calculations, we are able to obtain and analyse steady-state (limit-cycle) results for the force and flow field in the vicinity of the body.

Systematic renormalized perturbation expansions for turbulence and turbulent convection are constructed which are invariant at each order under random Galilean transformations. Two types of expansion are developed whose lowest truncations give, respectively, the Lagrangian-history direct-interaction approximation and the abridged Lagrangian-history direct-interaction approximation. These approximations previously were derived as heuristic modifications of the Eulerian direct-interaction approximation (Kraichnan 1965). The techniques used involve reversion of primitive perturbation expansions for the generalized velocity field u(x, t/s), defined as the velocity measured at time s in the fluid element which passes through x at time t. The new expansions are illustrated by application to a random linear oscillator, to passive-scalar convection by a random velocity and to the Lagrangian velocity covariance. The lowest term of the expansion for the passive scalar gives Taylor's (1921) exact result for dispersion of fluid elements, and higher terms describe the deviations of the particle-displacement distribution from Gaussian form. In all the applications the assumed underlying statistics are more general than Gaussian statistics, which appear as a special case.

A field observation array for the atmospheric surface layer (ASL) was built on a dry flat bed of Qingtu Lake in Minqin (China) as the Qingtu Lake Observation Array (QLOA) site, which is similar to the Surface Layer Turbulence and Environmental Science Test (SLTEST) site in the Utah (USA) Western desert. The present observation array can synchronously perform multi-point measurements of wind velocity and temperature at different vertical and streamwise positions. In other words, three-dimensional turbulent ASL flows can be measured at the QLOA station and Reynolds numbers as high as $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\sim O(10^{6})$ can be achieved with steady wind conditions. By careful selection and pretreatment for measured data of more than 1200 h, the QLOA data have been validated to be reliable for high Reynolds number turbulent boundary layer research. Results from correlation and spectral analysis confirm that very large scale motions (VLSMs) exist in the ASL at a Reynolds number up to $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\approx 4\times 10^{6}$. Through premultiplied spectral analysis, it is revealed that the spectral energy in the high-wavenumber region decreases with height, similar to turbulent boundary layers at low or moderate Reynolds numbers, while it increases with height in the low-wavenumber region resulting in a log–linear increase of VLSMs energy with height, which is different from turbulent boundary layers at low or moderate Reynolds numbers. The present analyses support the view that the evolution of the VLSMs cannot be fully attributed to a ‘bottom-up’ mechanism alone, and probably other mechanisms, including a ‘top-down’ mechanism, also play a role.

We investigate experimentally the force generated by the unsteady vortex formation of low-aspect-ratio normal flat plates with one end free. The objective of this study is to determine the role of the free end, or tip, vortex. Understanding this simple case provides insight into flapping-wing propulsion, which involves the unsteady motion of low-aspect-ratio appendages. As a simple model of a propulsive half-stroke, we consider a rectangular normal flat plate undergoing a translating start-up motion in a towing tank. Digital particle image velocimetry is used to measure multiple perpendicular sections of the flow velocity and vorticity, in order to correlate vortex circulation with the measured plate force. The three-dimensional wake structure is captured using flow visualization. We show that the tip vortex produces a significant maximum in the plate force. Suppressing its formation results in a force minimum. Comparing plates of aspect ratio six and two, the flow is similar in terms of absolute distance from the tip, but evolves faster for aspect ratio two. The plate drag coefficient increases with decreasing aspect ratio.

We consider a porous solid, partially filled with a non-wetting fluid, just above the injection threshold: the injected regions have the topology of the infinite cluster in a percolation problem, and they split into a ‘backbone’ part plus ‘dead ends’. Under a steady Darcy flow, a dye molecule moves by convection on the backbone, and by molecular diffusion on the dead ends. The process has some similarity with solute transport in chromatographic columns. However, because the ‘dead ends’ have a broad distribution of sizes, special singularities may occur, which are reminiscent of non-Gaussian transport for charge carriers in amorphous semiconductors.

We ultimately predict the existence of a well-defined diffusion coefficient D|| for motion parallel to the average flow, in the limit of slow molecular diffusion. We find $D_{\|}\approx (\overline{U}\xi)^2/D_{\rm a}$, where ξ is the percolation correlation length, $\overline{U}$ the macroscopic flow velocity and Da the diffusion coefficient of an ‘ant’ on the infinite cluster (i.e. the macroscopic diffusion constant measured in the absence of flow).

An expression is obtained for the jump in the vorticity across a gasdynamic discontinuity in an inviscid flow. This result generalized results of Truesdell (1952) and Lighthill (1957) for the vorticity behind a steady curved shock in a uniform flow and that of Emmons (1957) for the vorticity jump across a steady flame. The derivation is a dynamical one, and no assumptions on the composition or thermodynamic properties of the fluid are made. The jump in vorticity in the steady flow case is found to depend upon the jump in density and upon gradients along the discontinuity surface of the tangential velocity component and of the normal mass flow. An analogous result is found with unsteady flow.

The two-dimensional flow around a rotating circular cylinder is studied at Re = 100. The instability mechanisms for the first and second shedding modes are analysed. The region in the flow with a role of ‘wavemaker’ in the excitation of the global instability is identified by considering the structural sensitivity of the unstable mode. This approach is compared with the analysis of the perturbation kinetic energy production, a classic approach in linear stability analysis. Multiple steady-state solutions are found at high rotation rates, explaining the quenching of the second shedding mode. Turning points in phase space are associated with the movement of the flow stagnation point. In addition, a method to examine which structural variation of the base flow has the largest impact on the instability features is proposed. This has relevant implications for the passive control of instabilities. Finally, numerical simulations of the flow are performed to verify that the structural sensitivity analysis is able to provide correct indications on where to position passive control devices, e.g. small obstacles, in order to suppress the shedding modes.

Amplitude equations (including nonlinear damping terms) are derived which describe the evolution of patterns in large-aspect-ratio driven capillary wave experiments. For drive strength just above threshold, a reduction of the number of marginal modes (from travelling capillary waves to standing waves) leads to simpler amplitude equations, which have a Lyapunov functional. This functional determines the wavenumber and symmetry (square) of the most stable uniform state. The original amplitude equations, however, have a secondary instability to transverse amplitude modulation (TAM), which is not present in the standing-wave equations. The TAM instability announces the restoration of the full set of marginal modes.

Experiments have been carried out to study the three-dimensional characteristics of vortex shedding from a half-ellipse shape with a blunt trailing edge. In order to control the occurrence of vortex dislocations, the trailing edges of the models used were constructed with a series of periodic waves across their spans. Flow visualization was carried out in a water tunnel at a Reynolds number of 2500, based on trailing-edge thickness. A number of shedding modes were observed and the sequence of mode transitions recorded. Quantitative data were obtained from wind tunnel measurements performed at a Reynolds number of 40000. Two shedding frequencies were recorded with the higher frequency occurring at spanwise positions coinciding with minima in the chord. At these same positions the base pressure was lowest and the vortex formation length longest. Arguments are put forward to explain these observations. It is shown that the concept of a universal Strouhal number holds, even when the flow is three-dimensional. The spanwise variation in time-average base pressure is predicted using the estimated amount of time the flow spends at the two shedding frequencies.

An experimental and numerical systematic study of the growth of the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability-induced mixing following a re-shock is made, where the initial shock moves from the light fluid to the heavy one, over an incident Mach number range of 1.15–1.45. The evolution of the mixing zone following the re-shock is found to be independent of its amplitude at the time of the re-shock and to depend directly on the strength of the re-shock. A linear growth of the mixing zone with time following the passage of the re-shock and before the arrival of the reflected rarefaction wave is found. Moreover, when the mixing zone width is plotted as a function of the distance travelled, the growth slope is found to be independent of the re-shock strength. A comparison of the experimental results with direct numerical simulation calculations reveals that the linear growth rate of the mixing zone is the result of a bubble competition process.

Water droplets (0.55 or 1.3 mm diameter) were photographed as they impinged on a stainless steel surface. The droplet impact velocity (10–50 m s−1) and the average roughness (0.03 or 0.23 μm) of the test surfaces were varied. The stainless steel substrate was mounted on the end of a rotating arm, giving linear velocities of up to 50 m s−1. Different stages of droplet impact were photographed by synchronizing the ejection of a single droplet with the position of the rotating arm and triggering of a camera. Finger-shape perturbations were observed around the edges of spreading droplets. The maximum diameter to which a droplet spread and the number of fingers formed around it were measured. The size and number of fingers increased with impact velocity and droplet diameter. At sufficiently high velocities, the tips of these fingers detached, producing satellite droplets. By increasing surface roughness, both the number of fingers and the maximum extent of spreading were decreased. At high impact velocities the spreading liquid film became so thin that it ruptured in several places. A mathematical model, based on linear Rayleigh–Taylor instability theory, was used to predict the wavelength of the fastest growing perturbation around a spreading droplet. The corresponding wavenumber agreed reasonably well with the number of fingers around the droplet.

Nonlinear modulational instability of wavepackets is one of the mechanisms responsible for the formation of large-amplitude water waves. Here, mechanically generated waves in a three-dimensional basin and numerical simulations of nonlinear waves have been compared in order to assess the ability of numerical models to describe the evolution of weakly nonlinear waves and predict the probability of occurrence of extreme waves within a variety of random directional wave fields. Numerical simulations have been performed following two different approaches: numerical integration of a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation and numerical integration of the potential Euler equations based on a higher-order spectral method. Whereas the first makes a narrow-banded approximation (both in frequency and direction), the latter is free from bandwidth constraints. Both models assume weakly nonlinear waves. On the whole, it has been found that the statistical properties of numerically simulated wave fields are in good quantitative agreement with laboratory observations. Moreover, this study shows that the modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation can also provide consistent results outside its narrow-banded domain of validity.

A new experimental investigation of decaying turbulence generated by a low-blockage space-filling fractal square grid is presented. We find agreement with previous works by Seoud & Vassilicos (Phys. Fluids, vol. 19, 2007, 105108) and Mazellier & Vassilicos (Phys. Fluids, vol. 22, 2010, 075101) but also extend the length of the assessed decay region and consolidate the results by repeating the experiments with different probes of increased spatial resolution. It is confirmed that this moderately high Reynolds number turbulence (up to here) does not follow the classical high Reynolds number scaling of the dissipation rate and does not obey the equivalent proportionality between the Taylor-based Reynolds number and the ratio of integral scale to the Taylor microscale . Instead we observe an approximate proportionality between and during decay. This non-classical behaviour is investigated by studying how the energy spectra evolve during decay and examining how well they can be described by self-preserving single-length-scale forms. A detailed study of homogeneity and isotropy is also presented which reveals the presence of transverse energy transport and pressure transport in the part of the turbulence decay region where we take data (even though previous studies found mean flow and turbulence intensity profiles to be approximately homogeneous in much of the decay region). The exceptionally fast turbulence decay observed in the part of the decay region where we take data is consistent with the non-classical behaviour of the dissipation rate. Measurements with a regular square mesh grid as well as comparisons with active-grid experiments by Mydlarski & Warhaft (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 320, 1996, pp. 331–368) and Kang, Chester & Meveneau (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 480, 2003, pp. 129–160) are also presented to highlight the similarities and differences between these turbulent flows and the turbulence generated by our fractal square grid.

The diffusive behaviour of swimming micro-organisms should be clarified in order to obtain a better continuum model for cell suspensions. In this paper, a swimming micro-organism is modelled as a squirming sphere with prescribed tangential surface velocity, in which the centre of mass of the sphere may be displaced from the geometric centre (bottom-heaviness). Effects of inertia and Brownian motion are neglected, because real micro-organisms swim at very low Reynolds numbers but are too large for Brownian effects to be important. The three-dimensional movement of 64 or 27 identical squirmers in a fluid otherwise at rest, contained in a cube with periodic boundary conditions, is dynamically computed, for random initial positions and orientations. The computation utilizes a database of pairwise interactions that has been constructed by the boundary element method. In the case of (non-bottom-heavy) squirmers, both the translational and the orientational spreading of squirmers is correctly described as a diffusive process over a sufficiently long time scale, even though all the movements of the squirmers were deterministically calculated. Scaling of the results on the assumption that the squirmer trajectories are unbiased random walks is shown to capture some but not all of the main features of the results. In the case of (bottom-heavy) squirmers, the diffusive behaviour in squirmers' orientations can be described by a biased random walk model, but only when the effect of hydrodynamic interaction dominates that of the bottom-heaviness. The spreading of bottom-heavy squirmers in the horizontal directions show diffusive behaviour, and that in the vertical direction also does when the average upward velocity is subtracted. The rotational diffusivity in this case, at a volume fraction c=0.1, is shown to be at least as large as that previously measured in very dilute populations of swimming algal cells (Chlamydomonas nivalis).

An experimental study of the interaction of a turbulent boundary layer with a wavy wall was conducted in a wind tunnel. A smooth neoprene rubber sheet comprising a portion of the floor of the tunnel was mechanically deformed into 12 sinusoidal waves which progressed upwind or down at controlled speed. The turbulent layer thickness was a little less than the wavelength. The mean velocity profile was linear on a semi-log plot over a substantial range of vertical height.

The wall pressure was observed to be asymmetrical about the wave profile, resulting in a pressure drag. Flow separation was not the cause of the drag. The drag was found to be larger than that predicted by the inviscid wave generation theory. The measurements indicate that the waves strongly modulate the turbulent structure. The phase of the turbulent stresses with respect to the waves varies with wave speed, indicating that the dynamical reaction time of the turbulence is not negligible in comparison with the wave period.

A nanoscale thermal anemometry probe (NSTAP) has been developed to measure velocity fluctuations at ultra-small scales. The sensing element is a free-standing platinum nanoscale wire, 100 nm × 2 μm × 60 μm, suspended between two current-carrying contacts and the sensor is an order of magnitude smaller than presently available commercial hot wires. The probe is constructed using standard semiconductor and MEMS manufacturing methods, which enables many probes to be manufactured simultaneously. Measurements were performed in grid-generated turbulence and compared to conventional hot-wire probes with a range of sensor lengths. The results demonstrate that the NSTAP behaves similarly to conventional hot-wire probes but with better spatial resolution and faster temporal response. The results are used to investigate spatial filtering effects, including the impact of spatial filtering on the probability density of velocity and velocity increment statistics.

Spectral analysis and flow visualization are presented for various velocity ratios and Reynolds numbers of a jet issuing perpendicularly from a developing pipe flow into a crossflow. The results are complete with conditional averages of various turbulent quantities for one jet-to-cross-flow velocity ratio R of 0.5. A unique conditional-sampling technique separated the contributions from the turbulent jet flow, the irrotational jet flow, the turbulent crossflow and the irrotational crossflow by using two conditioning functions simultaneously. The intermittency factor profiles indicate that irrotational cross-flow intrudes into the pipe but does not contribute to the average turbulent quantities, while the jet-pipe irrotational flow contributes significantly to them in the region above the exit where the interaction between the boundary-layer eddies and those of the pipe starts to take place. Further downstream, the contributions of the oncoming boundary-layer eddies to the statistical averages reduce significantly. The downstream development depends mainly on the average relative eddy sizes of the interacting turbulent fields.

Measurements of the distributions of pressure on a bluff flat plate (fence) have been correlated with the characteristics of the smooth-wall boundary layer in which it is immersed. For zero pressure-gradient flows, correlations are obtained for the variation of form drag with plate height h which are analogous in form to the ‘law of the wall’ and the ‘velocity-defect law’ for the boundary-layer velocity profile. The data for adverse pressure-gradient flows is suggestive of a ‘law of the wake’ type correlation. Pressures on the upstream face of the bluff-plate are determined by a wall-similarity law, even for h/δ > 1, and are independent of the pressure-gradient history of the flow; the separation induced upstream is apparently of the Stratford-Townsend type. The effects of the history of the boundary layer are manifested only in the flow in the rear separation bubble, and then only for h/δ > ½. The base pressure is also sensitive to free-stream pressure gradients downstream of the bluff-plate. The relative extent of upstream influence of the bluff-plate on the boundary layer is found to increase rapidly as h/δ decreases. One set of measurements of the mean flow field is also presented.

The large-scale vortex structures under spilling and plunging breakers are investigated, using a fully three-dimensional large-eddy simulation (LES). When an overturning jet projecting from the crest in a breaking wave rebounds from the water surface ahead, the vorticity becomes unstable in a saddle region of strain between the rebounding jet and a primary spanwise vortex, resulting in spanwise undulations of the vorticity. The undulations are amplified on a braid in this saddle region, leading to a vortex loop with counter-rotating vorticity. This vortex loop consequently envelops adjacent primary vortices, to form a typical rib structure. This rib component (the stretched vortex loop) in the large-scale vortex structure, which intensifies in the strains associated with the multiple primary vortices generated throughout the splash-up cycle, appears to be the previously found obliquely descending eddy.