The mathematical basis for resonance is investigated using a model equation describing one-dimensional dispersive waves interacting weakly through a quadratic term. If suitable time-invariant boundary conditions are imposed, possible oscillations of infinitesimal amplitude are restricted to a discrete set of wave-numbers. An asymptotic expansion valid for small amplitude shows that oscillations of different wave-number interact primarily in independent resonant trios. Energy is redistributed between members of a trio over a characteristic time inversely proportional to the amplitude of the oscillations in a periodic manner. The period depends on the initial conditions but is in general finite. Cubic interactions through resonant quartets are also discussed. The methods used are valid for a fairly wide class of equations describing weakly non-linear dispersive waves, but the expansion procedure used here fails for a continuous spectrum.

The detonation stability problem is studied by a normal mode approach which greatly simplifies the calculation of linear instability of detonation in contrast to the Laplace transform procedure used by Erpenbeck. The method of solution, for an arbitrary parameter set, is a shooting method which can be automated to generate easily the required information about instability. The condition on the perturbations applied at the end of the reaction zone is shown to be interpreted as either a boundedness condition or an acoustic radiation condition. Continuous and numerically exact neutral stability curves and boundaries are given as well as growth rates and eigenfunctions which are calculated for the first time. Our calculations include the Chapman–Jouguet (CJ) case which presents no special difficulty. We give representative results for our detonation model and summarize the one-dimensional stability behaviour in parameter space. Comparison with previous results for the neutral stability boundaries and approximations to the unstable discrete spectrum are given. Parametric studies of the unstable, discrete spectrum's dependence on the activation energy and the overdrive factor are given with the implications for interpreting the physical mechanism of instability observed in experiments. This first paper is restricted to the case of one-dimensional linear instability. Extensions to transverse disturbances will be treated in a sequel.

We study the stability of stratified gas–liquid flow in a horizontal rectangular channel using viscous potential flow. The analysis leads to an explicit dispersion relation in which the effects of surface tension and viscosity on the normal stress are not neglected but the effect of shear stresses is. Formulas for the growth rates, wave speeds and neutral stability curve are given in general and applied to experiments in air–water flows. The effects of surface tension are always important and determine the stability limits for the cases in which the volume fraction of gas is not too small. The stability criterion for viscous potential flow is expressed by a critical value of the relative velocity. The maximum critical value is when the viscosity ratio is equal to the density ratio; surprisingly the neutral curve for this viscous fluid is the same as the neutral curve for inviscid fluids. The maximum critical value of the velocity of all viscous fluids is given by that for inviscid fluid. For air at 20°C and liquids with density ρ = 1 g cm−3 the liquid viscosity for the critical conditions is 15 cP: the critical velocity for liquids with viscosities larger than 15 cP is only slightly smaller but the critical velocity for liquids with viscosities smaller than 15 cP, like water, can be much lower. The viscosity of the liquid has a strong effect on the growth rate. The viscous potential flow theory fits the experimental data for air and water well when the gas fraction is greater than about 70%.

The influence of rotation on the spectral energy transfer of homogeneous turbulence is investigated in this paper. Given the fact that linear dynamics, e.g. the inertial waves regime found in an RDT (rapid distortion theory) analysis, cannot affect a homogeneous isotropic turbulent flow, the study of nonlinear dynamics is of prime importance in the case of rotating flows. Previous theoretical (including both weakly nonlinear and EDQNM theories), experimental and DNS (direct numerical simulation) results are collected here and compared in order to give a self-consistent picture of the nonlinear effects of rotation on turbulence.

The inhibition of the energy cascade, which is linked to a reduction of the dissipation rate, is shown to be related to a damping of the energy transfer due to rotation. A model for this effect is quantified by a model equation for the derivative-skewness factor, which only involves a micro-Rossby number Roω=ω′/(2Ω) – ratio of r.m.s. vorticity and background vorticity – as the relevant rotation parameter, in accordance with DNS and EDQNM results.

In addition, anisotropy is shown also to develop through nonlinear interactions modified by rotation, in an intermediate range of Rossby numbers (RoL<1 and Roω>1), which is characterized by a macro-Rossby number RoL based on an integral lengthscale L and the micro-Rossby number previously defined. This anisotropy is mainly an angular drain of spectral energy which tends to concentrate energy in the wave-plane normal to the rotation axis, which is exactly both the slow and the two-dimensional manifold. In addition, a polarization of the energy distribution in this slow two-dimensional manifold enhances horizontal (normal to the rotation axis) velocity components, and underlies the anisotropic structure of the integral length-scales. Finally a generalized EDQNM (eddy damped quasi-normal Markovian) model is used to predict the underlying spectral transfer structure and all the subsequent developments of classic anisotropy indicators in physical space. The results from the model are compared to recent LES results and are shown to agree well. While the EDQNM2 model was developed to simulate ‘strong’ turbulence, it is shown that it has a strong formal analogy with recent weakly nonlinear approaches to wave turbulence.

Using both the hydrogen-bubble flow-visualization technique and hot-wire-anemometry measurements, secondary vortices have been detected in the near-wake of circular cylinders and their characteristics studied over a Reynolds-number range of 1200–11000. The vortex-shedding characteristics of these secondary vortices clearly indicate that ‘transition waves’, detected in the cylinder near wake by Bloor (1964), and secondary vortices are identical phenomena. It is established that the non-dimensional shedding frequency of the secondary vortices demonstrates a 0.87 power-law relationship relative to Reynolds number, contrary to the 0.5 power-law reported by Bloor. The results suggest that the vortices result from a near-wake, free-shear instability which causes the separated cylinder boundary layer to roll up into the secondary vortices. Visual observations indicate that immediately following their formation the vortices undergo a strong three-dimensional distortion, which may provide the mechanism for the transition from laminar to turbulent Strouhal vortices.

Analysis of data from a direct simulation of statistically steady homogeneous turbulence suggests that the vorticity tubes, which constitute the main structure of the vorticity field, are produced by shear instabilities. This is confirmed by a decay calculation, in which vorticity sheets appear at first, and then roll up to form the first tubes. These instabilities seem to be at least as important as vortex stretching in transferring energy from large to small scales.

Intense fluid motions can be generated by the solidification of a binary liquid. This review paper describes systematically some of the concepts involved in the fluid mechanics of solidification. It also presents quantitative calculations for the fluid motion, the rate of growth of solid and the evolution of both the thermal and the compositional fields in various geometries. The results of many of the calculations are favourably compared with data from laboratory experiments using aqueous solutions.

The instability of an annular coating of liquid on a wire or on the inside of a small tube subject to capillary forces at its free surface is discussed. It was found that for given values of s/a, the ratio of the two radii of the annulus, and S ≡ρTa/μ2, the reciprocal of the square of the Ohnesorge number, there is a disturbance of a certain wavelength (2πa/λ)*, which grows more rapidly than disturbances of any other wavelength. One would therefore expect the liquid to break up into a regular pattern of drops with spacing given by this wavelength. The dependence of (2πa/λ)* on s/a and S has been calculated and is presented graphically. Experimental observations on drop formation on wires and in tubes which agree with the calculations are given.

The capillary instability of vertical liquid jets of different viscosities have been examined by imposing audio-frequency disturbances. Real time sequences of photographs allow a direct measurement of growth rates of disturbances of various wavelengths. Results show that in general non-linear effects dominate the growth processes. This is in agreement with Yuen's analysis. The growth rate of the difference between the neck and the swell, however, agrees well with the linearized analysis of Rayleigh and Chandrasekhar. The non-linear effect causes a liquid jet to disintegrate into drops with ligaments in between. The sizes of the ligaments decrease with increasing wave-number. The subsequent roll up of the ligament into droplet, the eventual coalescing of the droplet with the main drop and drop oscillation have also been studied.

The application of a simple discrete velocity model to low Mach number Couette and Rayleigh flow is investigated. In the model, the molecular velocities are restricted to a finite set and in this study only eight equal speed velocities are allowed. The Boltzmann equation is reduced by this approximation to a set of coupled differential equations which can be solved in closed form. The fluid velocity and shear stress in Couette flow are in approximate accord with those of Wang Chang & Uhlenbeck (1954) and of Lees (1959) over the complete range of Knudsen number. Similarly, the Rayleigh flow solution is remarkably like those found by other investigators using moment methods.

In this paper, we present a detailed investigation of the size, scale and dynamics of macro-turbulent flow structures in gravel-bed rivers. We used an array of seven electromagnetic current meters with high resolution in both space and time to measure the streamwise velocity fluctuations in a gravel-bed river. The array was deployed successively in various configurations in order to quantify the vertical, lateral and longitudinal extent of the flow structures and to estimate their advecting velocities. To depict the spatial and temporal properties of the flow structures, we used space–time velocity matrices, space–time correlation analysis and coherent-structure detection schemes. The results show that the large-scale turbulent flow structures in a gravel-bed river occupy the entire depth of the flow and that they are elongated and narrow. The length of the structures is 3 to 5 times the flow depth while the width is between 0.5 and 1 times flow depth. In spite of the high roughness of the bed, these values are similar to those reported in the literature for laboratory experiments on large-scale turbulent flow structures. The dynamics of the large-scale turbulent flow structures investigated using flow visualization highlight the interactions between the outer flow region and the near-bed region. Our evidence suggests that large-scale flow incursions trigger ejections in the near-bed region that can develop into megabursts that can reach the water surface.

The mechanisms which initiate secondary flow in developing turbulent flow along a corner are examined on the basis of both energy and vorticity considerations. This is done by experimentally evaluating the terms of an energy balance and vorticity balance applied to the mean motion along a corner bisector. The results show that a transverse flow is initiated and directed towards the corner as a direct result of turbulent shear stress gradients normal to the bisector. The results further indicate that anisotropy of the turbulent normal stresses does not play a major role in the generation of secondary flow. Possible extensions of the present results to other related flow situations are ahstrated and discussed.

Mean streamwise vorticity in turbulent flow is shown to arise both from mean flow skewing and from the inhomogeneity of anisotropic wall turbulence. The structure of the Reynolds stress tensor is examined in several flows where the latter mechanism predominates. On the basis of a simple model for the anisotropy, the direction of the secondary currents is deduced for the corner boundary layer, the salient edge flow, and in the non-uniform nominally two-dimensional boundary layer.

The fingering instability of an interface between two immiscible fluids in a Hele Shaw cell is simulated numerically. The algorithm used is based on a transcription of the equations of motion for the interface in which it formally becomes a generalized vortex sheet. The evolution of this sheet is computed using a variant of the vortex-in-cell method. The resulting scheme and code make it possible to follow the collective behaviour of many competing and interacting fingers well into the nonlinear, large-amplitude regime. It is shown that in this regime the evolution is controlled essentially by just one dimensionless parameter, the ratio of fluid viscosities. The effects of varying this parameter are studied and the results compared with experimental investigations. Scaling properties of the average density profile across the evolving mixed layer between the two homogeneous fluid phases are investigated. Many phenomena are observed that must be characterized as collective interactions and thus cannot be understood in terms of flows with just a single finger.

In flow between concentric rotating circular cylinders, it was shown by Taylor (1923) that instability may occur in the form of toroidal vortices spaced regularly along the axis. When the vortex motion occurs additional torque is required to keep the cylinders in motion at given speeds. Stuart (1958) used an energy-balance method, in the case when the annular gap is small compared with the radius, to estimate the additional torque and the associated finite amplitude attained by the vortices. He included the effect of distortion of the mean motion, but ignored the generation of harmonics of the fundamental mode and the distortion of the velocity associated with the fundamental mode. It is now known that these are not valid mathematical approximations and a rigorous perturbation expansion is developed here to remedy the deficiency. The analysis is valid for any gap width and any angular speeds of the containing cylinders, but requires the amplification rate of the disturbance to be small.

Numerical results using a digital computer are obtained for the shape and amplitude of the vortices in three cases: (i) when the outer cylinder has twice the radius of the inner one and is kept at rest, (ii) when the gap is small and the cylinders rotate with nearly the same speeds, and (iii) when the gap is small and the outer cylinder is kept at rest. The equilibrium amplitude obtained in the last case is substantially the same as that found by Stuart.

The results for cases (i) and (iii) give close agreement with the experimental values obtained by Taylor (1936) and Donnelly (1958) for the torque required to keep the inner cylinder rotating with constant speed while the outer one is at rest, for a certain range of speeds. In the small-gap problem it is shown that the equilibrium amplitude is almost proportional to 1 − m, where m is the ratio of the angular speeds of the outer and inner cylinders.

The strength (initial circulation) and spacing of vortices in the wake of a circular cylinder have been obtained for conditions under which the body undergoes lateral vibrations. The vibrations of the cylinder were at all times synchronized with those in the wake, thereby suppressing the natural Strouhal frequency in favour of a common synchronized or ‘locked-in’ frequency for the body-wake system. All experiments were performed at a Reynolds number of 144 or 190. An inverse relation between the initial circulation K and the length lF of the vortex formation region was obtained for cylinder oscillations of up to 50% of a diameter, at vibration frequencies both above and below the Strouhal shedding frequency. The initial circulation K of the vortices was increased by as much as 65%, at lF = 1·6 diameters, from the stationary-cylinder value of K corresponding to lF = 3·2d. An increase in the rate A of vorticity generation of 80% from the stationary-cylinder wake value was obtained with the cylinder vibrating at 30% of a diameter and 110% of the Strouhal frequency. Both flow-visualization and hot-wire results show that the lateral spacing of the vortex street decreases as the vibration amplitude of the cylinder is increased, but that the longitudinal vortex spacing is independent of changes in amplitude. The longitudinal spacing, however, varies inversely with the vibration frequency. The street approaches a single line of vortices of alternating sign as the amplitude of vibration approaches values near a full cylinder diameter, and secondary vortex formation at these large amplitudes is associated with the vanishing lateral spacing of the street. Observation of the wake has elucidated the mechanism of vortex formation; the entrainment processes in the formation region have been observed at small intervals over a cycle of the cylinder's motion.

Turbulent boundary layer experiments have been conducted at various Reynolds numbers on smooth walls and also on ‘k-type’ and ‘d-type’ rough walls. Both the spectral results and the broadband turbulence intensity results strongly support the Townsend (1976) attached eddy hypothesis and the Perry & Chong (1982) model. The spectral results obtained using the ‘flying’ hot-wire technique show the errors involved when using Taylor's (1938) hypothesis for converting the spectra from the frequency domain to the wavenumber domain. If the viscous dissipation spectral region is taken into account, the broadband turbulence intensity results agree well with the attached eddy hypothesis. The inconsistency of the various constants given in Perry, Lim & Henbest (1987) for the smooth and rough walls has been explained and removed. Lack of spatial resolution of the hot wires explains to some extent the scatter in the turbulence intensity of the component normal to the wall. This spatial resolution effect is most pronounced in the near-wall region at high Reynolds number and has been corrected by using the method of Wyngaard (1968).

We study the coalescence of two drops of an ideal fluid driven by surface tension. The velocity of approach is taken to be zero and the dynamical effect of the outer fluid (usually air) is neglected. Our approximation is expected to be valid on scales larger than $\ell_{\nu} = \rho\nu^2/\sigma$, which is 10 nm for water. Using a high-precision boundary integral method, we show that the walls of the thin retracting sheet of air between the drops reconnect in finite time to form a toroidal enclosure. After the initial reconnection, retraction starts again, leading to a rapid sequence of enclosures. Averaging over the discrete events, we find the minimum radius of the liquid bridge connecting the two drops to scale like $r_b \propto t^{1/2}$.

We report an experimental study on the onset of the large-scale coherent mean flow in Rayleigh–Bénard turbulent convection. Shadowgraph and particle image velocimetry techniques are used to visualize the motion of thermal plumes and measure the velocity of the plumes and of the ‘background’ flow field, as the fluid motion evolves from quiescent to steady state. The experiment reveals the dynamical origin of the initial horizontal motion required by the large-scale flow: the fluid entrainment caused by the plume's vertical motion generates vortices surrounding the plume itself. These vortices in turn generate the initial horizontal motion of the flow field. Two types of interactions have been identified: (i) direct plume–vortex interaction; and (ii) plume–plume interaction via vortices. These interactions and the interaction and merging of the vortices from neighbouring plumes lead to groupings and/or merging of plumes, which in turn generate vortices of even larger scale. As a result of these interactions, the convective flow evolves into a coherent rotatory motion consisting of mainly the plumes themselves and spanning the whole convection box. This study clearly demonstrates that it is the thermal plumes that initiate the horizontal large-scale flow across the top and bottom conducting plates.

Experiments were conducted in the free-piston shock tube and shock tunnel with dissociating nitrogen and carbon dioxide, ionizing argon and frozen argon to measure the transition condition in pseudosteady and steady flow. The transition condition in the steady flow, in which the wall was eliminated by symmetry, agrees with the calculated von Neumann condition. In the real gases this calculation assumed thermo-dynamic equilibrium after the reflected shock. In the pseudosteady flow of reflexion from a wedge the measured transition angle lies on the Mach-reflexion side of the calculated detachment condition by an amount which may be explained in terms of the displacement effect of the boundary layer on the wedge surface. A single criterion based on the availability of a length scale at the reflexion point explains the difference between the pseudosteady and steady flow transition condition and predicts a hysteresis effect in the transition angle when the shock angle is varied during steady flow. No significant effects on the transition condition due to finite relaxation length could be detected. However, new experiments in which interesting relaxation effects should be evident are suggested.