This paper describes some experiments in swirling flows in a diverging cylindrical tube in which various types of vortex breakdowns were observed.

In one set of experiments, the position of the breakdown, axial component of the velocity of the vortex core, swirl angle distribution ahead of the breakdown, and the pressure distribution along the tube were determined for various flow rates and for various values of circulation imparted to the fluid (water). Basically, three types of vortex breakdown were observed, viz. mild (double helix) breakdown, spiral breakdown (followed by turbulent mixing), and axisymmetric breakdown (followed by a thicker vortex core, then a spiral breakdown, and finally by turbulent mixing). The type and the location of the stationary breakdowns were found to be dependent, for the particular vortex tube used, upon the Reynolds and circulation numbers of the flow. In a spiral breakdown, the vortex core filament maintained the same sense of rotation as the upstream fluid elements. In an axisymmetric breakdown, the bubble included an inclined vortex-ring whose axis gyrated about the axis of the tube.

In a second set of experiments, the response of the abrupt structural change along the axis of flow to gradual and abrupt changes in the upstream and downstream flow conditions was examined. The axisymmetric breakdown responded in a manner analogous to the hydraulic jump in open-channel flow before if reached a new stationary position along the axis of the tube.

The observations reported and the evidence presented herein revealed that the axisymmetric breakdown is a finite transition between two sequent states of flow as proposed by Benjamin (1962, 1965, 1967) on theoretical grounds.

Some of the consequences of the conservation of magnetic helicity $\int \rm{a.b}\it{d}^{\rm{3}}\rm{r\qquad (a\; =\; vector\; potential\; of\; magnetic\; field\; b)}$ for incompressible three-dimensional turbulent MHD flows are investigated. Absolute equilibrium spectra for inviscid infinitely conducting flows truncated at lower and upper wavenumbers kmin and kmax are obtained. When the total magnetic helicity approaches an upper limit given by the total energy (kinetic plus magnetic) divided by kmin, the spectra of magnetic energy and helicity are strongly peaked near kmin; in addition, when the cross-correlations between the velocity and magnetic fields are small, the magnetic energy density near kmin greatly exceeds the kinetic energy density. Several arguments are presented in favour of the existence of inverse cascades of magnetic helicity towards small wavenumbers leading to the generation of large-scale magnetic energy.

The dynamics of quasi-geostrophic flow with uniform potential vorticity reduces to the evolution of buoyancy, or potential temperature, on horizontal boundaries. There is a formal resemblance to two-dimensional flow, with surface temperature playing the role of vorticity, but a different relationship between the flow and the advected scalar creates several distinctive features. A series of examples are described which highlight some of these features: the evolution of an elliptical vortex; the start-up vortex shed by flow over a mountain; the instability of temperature filaments; the ‘edge wave’ critical layer; and mixing in an overturning edge wave. Characteristics of the direct cascade of the tracer variance to small scales in homogeneous turbulence, as well as the inverse energy cascade, are also described. In addition to its geophysical relevance, the ubiquitous generation of secondary instabilities and the possibility of finite-time collapse make this system a potentially important, numerically tractable, testbed for turbulence theories.

The present work analyses the effects of variable porosity and inertial forces on convective flow and heat transfer in porous media. Specific attention is given to forced convection in packed beds in the vicinity of an impermeable boundary. After establishing the governing equations, a thorough investigation of the channelling effect and its influence on flow and heat transfer through variable-porosity media is presented. Based on some analytical considerations, a numerical scheme for the solution of the governing equations is proposed to investigate the variable-porosity effects on the velocity and temperature fields inside the porous medium. The method of matched asymptotic expansions is used to show the qualitative aspects of variable porosity in producing the channelling effect. These qualitative features are also confirmed by the numerical solution. The qualitative effects of the controlling parameters on flow and heat transfer in variable-porosity media are discussed at length. The variable-porosity effects are shown to be significant for most cases. For the same conditions as the perturbation solution, the numerical results are in excellent agreement with the perturbation analysis. The numerical results are also in very good agreement with the available experimental data of previous studies.

The two-dimensional incompressible mixing layer was investigated by using constant-temperature, linearized hot wire anemometers. The measurements were divided into three categories: (1) the conventional average measurements; (2) time-average measurements in the turbulent and the non-turbulent zones; (3) ensemble average measurements conditioned to a specific location of the interface. The turbulent energy balance was constructed twice, once using the conventional results and again using the turbulent zone results. Some differences emerged between the two sets of results. It appears that the mixing region can be divided into two regions, one on the high velocity side which resembles the outer part of a wake and the other on the low velocity side which resembles a jet. The binding turbulent–non-turbulent interfaces seem to move independently of each other. There is a strong connexion between the instantaneous location of the interface and the axial velocity profile. Indeed the well known exponential mean velocity profile never actually exists at any given instant. In spite of the complexity of the flow the simple concepts of eddy viscosity and eddy diffusivity appear to be valid within the turbulent zone.

In this paper we study the steady uniform flows that develop when granular material is released from a hopper on top of a static pile in a channel. More specifically, we focus on the role of sidewalls by carrying out experiments in set-up of different widths, from narrow channels 20 particle diameters wide to channels 600 particle diameters wide. Results show that steady flows on pile are entirely controlled by sidewall effects. A theoretical model, taking into account the wall friction and based on a simple local constitutive law recently proposed for other granular flow configurations, gives predictions in quantitative agreement with the measurements. This result gives new insights into our understanding of free-surface granular flows and strongly supports the relevance of the constitutive law proposed.

Two new techniques for the study of the linear and nonlinear instability in growing boundary layers are presented. The first technique employs partial differential equations of parabolic type exploiting the slow change of the mean flow, disturbance velocity profiles, wavelengths, and growth rates in the streamwise direction. The second technique solves the Navier–Stokes equation for spatially evolving disturbances using buffer zones adjacent to the inflow and outflow boundaries. Results of both techniques are in excellent agreement. The linear and nonlinear development of Tollmien–Schlichting (TS) waves in the Blasius boundary layer is investigated with both techniques and with a local procedure based on a system of ordinary differential equations. The results are compared with previous work and the effects of non-parallelism and nonlinearly are clarified. The effect of nonparallelism is confirmed to be weak and, consequently, not responsible for the discrepancies between measurements and theoretical results for parallel flow. Experimental uncertainties, the adopted definition of the growth rate, and the transient initial evolution of the TS wave in vibrating-ribbon experiments probably cause the discrepancies. The effect of nonlinearity is consistent with previous weakly nonlinear theories. White nonlinear effects are small near branch I of the neutral curve, they are significant near branch II and delay or event prevent the decay of the wave.

The flow in the wake of a two-dimensional model with a blunt trailing edge was examined at Reynolds numbers (based on model chord) between 1·4 × 105 and 2·56 × 105. The ratio of total boundary-layer thickness at the trailing edge to model base height was approximately 0·5. Measurements were taken of base pressure and vortex shedding frequency together with traverses of the wake using a hot-wire anemometer. Traverses carried out along the wake showed a peak in the root-mean-square velocity-fluctuation at a distance equal to one base height from the model rear face. The position of the peak is referred to as the position of the fully formed vortex. The investigation was extended to a model fitted with splitter plates up to four base heights long. For each plate tested, a position of the fully formed vortex was found, and its distance from the model base was discovered to be inversely proportional to the base pressure coefficient. The flow about the model with splitter plates is described as being separated into five régimes of flow.

The paper reports on measurements in the flow generated by a jet issuing from a circular outlet in a wall into a cross-stream along this wall. For the jet-to-crossflow velocity ratios R of 0.5, 1 and 2, the mean and fluctuating velocity components were measured with a three-sensor hot-wire probe. The hot-wire signals were evaluated to yield the three mean-velocity components, the turbulent kinetic energy, the three turbulent shear stresses and, in the case of R = 0.5, the terms in the turbulent-kinetic-energy equation. The results give a quantitative picture of the complex three-dimensional mean flow and turbulence field, and the various phenomena as well as their dependence on the velocity ratio R are discussed in detail.

The linearized equations of motion show that in a viscous heat-conducting compressible medium three modes of fluctuations exist, each one of which is a familiar type of disturbance. The vorticity mode occurs in an incompressible turbulent flow, the entropy mode is familiar as temperature fluctuations in low speed turbulent heat transfer problems, and the sound mode is the subject of conventional acoustics. A consistent higher order perturbation theory is presented with the only restrictions being that the Prandtl number is 3/4 and the viscosity and heat conductivity are monotinic functions of the temperature alone. The theory is based on expansion of the disturbance fields in powers of an amplitude parameter α. The non-linearity of the full Navier-Stokes equations can be interpreted as interaction between the three basic modes; in order to help physical insight the interactions are classed as ‘mass-like’, ‘force-like’, and ‘heat-like’ effects.

Besides the amplitude parameter α there is another subsidiary non-dimensional parameter ε which indicates the relative importance of viscosity and heat conduction effects as compared to the inertial effects, ε is proportional to the ratio of the molecular mean free path and the characteristic length of the flow pattern (Knudsen number). The main contribution of the paper is the outline of a consistent successive approximation for an arbitrary order in α and the presentation of explicit formulae for the second order (bilateral) interactions.

A special case of rather general significance is treated in more detail. This is when all three basic modes have intensities and length scales of the same orders of magnitude and in addition to α the parameter ε is also small; the second-order interactions are then relatively few and easily identifiable and are shown in table 1.

The present analysis also sheds some light on the ‘zero order’ approximation which treats the vorticity and entropy disturbances as a ‘frozen pattern’ and the sound field as propagating nondissipative waves. The interpretation of hot-wire measurements relies heavily on these simplified models and the present paper lends some support to these current hot-wire practices.

A joint experiment to study microscale fluctuations of atmospheric pressure above surface gravity waves was conducted in the Bight of Abaco, Bahamas, during November and December 1974. Field hardware included a three-dimensional array of six wave sensors and seven air-pressure sensors, one of which was mounted on a wave follower. The primary objectives of the study were to resolve differences in previous field measurements by Dobson (1971), Elliott (1972b) and Snyder (1974), and to estimate the vertical profile of wave-induced pressure and the corresponding input of energy and momentum to the wave field.

Analysis of a pre-experiment intercalibration of instruments and of 30 h of field data partially removes the discrepancy between the previous measurements of the wave-induced component of the pressure and gives a consistent picture of the profile of this pressure over a limited range of dimensionless height and wind speed. Over this range the pressure decays approximately exponentially without change of phase; the decay is slightly less steep than predicted by potential theory. The corresponding momentum transfer is positive for wind speeds exceeding the phase speed. Extrapolation of present results to higher frequencies suggests that the total transfer is a significant fraction of the wind stress (0·1 to 1·0, depending on dimensionless fetch).

Analysis of the turbulent component of the atmospheric pressure shows that the ‘intrinsic’ downwind coherence scale is typically an order-of-magnitude greater than the crosswind scale, consistent with a ‘frozen’ turbulence hypothesis. These and earlier data of Priestley (1965) and Elliott (1972c) suggest a horizontally isotropic ‘intrinsic’ turbulent pressure spectrum which decays as k−ν where k is the (horizontal) wave-number and ν is typically −2 to −3; estimates of this spectrum are computed for the present data. The implications of these findings for Phillips’ (1957) theory of wave growth are examined.

The growth and collapse of transient vapour cavities near a rigid boundary in the presence of buoyancy forces and an incident stagnation-point flow are modelled via a boundary-integral method. Bubble shapes, particle pathlines and pressure contours are used to illustrate the results of the numerical solutions. Migration of the collapsing bubble, and subsequent jet formation, may be directed either towards or away from the rigid boundary, depending on the relative magnitude of the physical parameters. For appropriate parameter ranges in stagnation-point flow, unusual ‘hour-glass’ shaped bubbles are formed towards the end of the collapse of the bubble. It is postulated that the final collapsed state of the bubble may be two toroidal bubbles/ring vortices of opposite circulation. For buoyant vapour cavities the Kelvin impulse is used to obtain criteria which determine the direction of migration and subsequent jet formation in the collapsing bubble.

We consider the viscous motion of a thin axisymmetric column of fluid with a free surface. A one-dimensional equation of motion for the velocity and the radius is derived from the Navier–Strokes equation. We compare our results with recent experiments on the breakup of a liquid jet and on the bifurcation of a drop suspended from an orifice. The equations form singularities as the fluid neck is pinching off. The nature of the singularities is investigated in detail.

When immersed in a non-uniform electrolyte solution, a rigid charged sphere migrates toward higher or lower concentration of the electrolyte depending on the relative ionic mobilities and the charge borne by the sphere. This motion has a twofold origin: first, a macroscopic electrolyte gradient produces an electric field which acts on the charged sphere (electrophoresis); secondly, the electrolyte gradient polarizes the cloud of counterions surrounding the charged sphere by making the cloud thinner on the high-concentration side (chemiphoresis). In this paper, we compute the terminal velocity of a non-conductive sphere through a slightly non-uniform solution of a symmetrically charged binary electrolyte. The analysis proceeds through an expansion in the small parameter λ (defined as the ratio of the counterion-cloud thickness to the particle radius). Results to O(λ) are presented. The only property of the sphere's surface that affects the velocity is its zeta potential ζ when the electrolyte gradient vanishes; no information concerning the dependence of ζ upon ionic strength is needed. While the chemiphoretic effect always directs the particle toward higher electrolyte concentration, the electrophoretic contribution can move the particle in either direction depending on the sign of βζ, where β is a normalized difference in mobilities between cation and anion of the elecytrolyte; thus particle movement could be directed toward either higher or lower electrolyte concentration depending on the physical properties of the system. With slight algebraic rearrangement, our results are also applicable to conventional electrophoresis (particle motion in an applied electric field) and show excellent agreement with the numerical calculations of O'Brien & White (1978).

A constitutive equation appropriate for flow of cohesionless granular materials at high deformation rates and low stress levels is proposed. It consists of an extension and a reinterpretation of the theory of Goodman & Cowin (1972), and accounts for the non-Newtonian nature of the flow as evidenced by Bagnold's (1954) experiments. The theory is applied to analyses of gravity flows in inclined chutes and vertical channels. Experiments were set up in an attempt to generate two-dimensional shear flows corresponding to these analyses. Velocity profiles measured by a technique which makes use of fibre optic probes agree qualitatively with the theoretical predictions, but direct comparison is inappropriate because of unavoidable side-wall friction effects in the experiments. The existing measure of agreement suggests that the most prominent effects have been included in the proposed constitutive relations. Tests in the inclined chute revealed the possible existence of surge waves and granular jumps analogous to hydraulic jumps.

Bypass transition in an initially laminar boundary layer beneath free-stream turbulence is simulated numerically. New perspectives on this phenomenon are obtained from the numerical flow fields. Transition precursors consist of long backward jets contained in the fluctuating u-velocity field; they flow backwards relative to the local mean velocity. The jets extend into the upper portion of the boundary layer, where they interact with free-stream eddies. In some locations a free-stream perturbation to the jet shear layer develops into a patch of irregular motion – a sort of turbulent spot. The spot spreads longitudinally and laterally, and ultimately merges into the downstream turbulent boundary layer. Merging spots maintain the upstream edge of the turbulent region. The jets, themselves, are produced by low-frequency components of the free-stream turbulence that penetrate into the laminar boundary layer. Backward jets are a component of laminar region streaks.

A method to construct turbulent inflow from Orr–Sommerfeld continuous modes is described. The free-stream turbulent intensity was chosen to correspond with the experiment by Roach & Brierly (1990). Ensemble-averaged numerical data are shown to be in good agreement with laboratory measurements.

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 flat interface between two fluids in a vertically vibrating vessel may be parametrically excited, leading to the generation of standing waves. The equations constituting the stability problem for the interface of two viscous fluids subjected to sinusoidal forcing are derived and a Floquet analysis is presented. The hydrodynamic system in the presence of viscosity cannot be reduced to a system of Mathieu equations with linear damping. For a given driving frequency, the instability occurs only for certain combinations of the wavelength and driving amplitude, leading to tongue-like stability zones. The viscosity has a qualitative effect on the wavelength at onset: at small viscosities, the wavelength decreases with increasing viscosity, while it increases for higher viscosities. The stability threshold is in good agreement with experimental results. Based on the analysis, a method for the measurement of the interfacial tension, and the sum of densities and dynamic viscosities of two phases of a fluid near the liquid-vapour critical point is proposed.

Results of hot-wire measurements in a plane incompressible jet are reported. The flow was found to be self-preserving beyond x/d > 40 and measurements were made up to x/d = 120. The quantities measured include mean velocities, turbulence intensities and third- and fourth-order terms, as well as two-point correlations and the intermittency factor. Conditional sampling techniques were used to obtain exclusively data within the turbulent zone of the jet. The results are compared with previous investigations.

This is the third paper in a sequence providing data on turbulent free shear flows.