The three-dimensional flow field past an I-shaped dual-step cylinder has been obtained by numerical integration of the Navier–Stokes equations at Reynolds number ($Re_D$) 150. The I-shaped cylinder consisted of two large-diameter (D) cylinders with a small-diameter (d) cylinder in between. With a view to exploring the vortex dynamics and structural loads, simulations were performed for eight different lengths $l$ of the small cylinder, varied from $l/D=10$ to 0.2 for a fixed diameter ratio $D/d=2$. When the length of the small cylinder is sufficiently large, the wake behind the I-shaped cylinder is similar to the wake behind the single-step cylinder (Tian et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 891, 2020, A24). As the small cylinder length decreases, the enhanced interactions between the two steps make the present wake deviate from the wake of the single-step cylinder, leading to four different wake modes distinguished by different combinations of vortex cells. The physical formation mechanisms were analysed in terms of the vortex dynamics. Besides the wake flow, the streamwise vortices around the I-shaped step cylinder were also investigated. A pair of edge vortices and a junction vortex were identified for $l/D \geq ~1$. When the gap between the two steps becomes too small, $l/D \leq ~0.2$, the junction vortex disappears, and only a pair of edge vortices exists. Varying the distance between the two steps strongly affects the structural loads (drag and lift) along the I-shaped cylinder. The dependence of the loads on $l/D$ was readily explained by the different wake modes.

A liquid drop impacting a rigid substrate undergoes deformation and spreading due to normal reaction forces, which are counteracted by surface tension. On a non-wetting substrate, the drop subsequently retracts and takes off. Our recent work (Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 129, 2022, 104501) revealed two peaks in the temporal evolution of the normal force $F(t)$ – one at impact and another at jump-off. The second peak coincides with a Worthington jet formation, which vanishes at high viscosities due to increased viscous dissipation affecting flow focusing. In this article, using experiments, direct numerical simulations and scaling arguments, we characterize both the peak amplitude $F_1$ at impact and the one at takeoff ($F_2$) and elucidate their dependency on the control parameters: the Weber number $We$ (dimensionless impact kinetic energy) and the Ohnesorge number $Oh$ (dimensionless viscosity). The first peak amplitude $F_1$ and the time $t_1$ to reach it depend on inertial time scales for low viscosity liquids, remaining nearly constant for viscosities up to 100 times that of water. For high viscosity liquids, we balance the rate of change in kinetic energy with viscous dissipation to obtain new scaling laws: $F_1/F_\rho \sim \sqrt {Oh}$ and $t_1/\tau _\rho \sim 1/\sqrt {Oh}$, where $F_\rho$ and $\tau _\rho$ are the inertial force and time scales, respectively, which are consistent with our data. The time $t_2$ at which the amplitude $F_2$ appears is set by the inertiocapillary time scale $\tau _\gamma$, independent of both the viscosity and the impact velocity of the drop. However, these properties dictate the magnitude of this amplitude.

Despite the extensive research on bubble collapse near rigid walls, the bubble collapse dynamics in the presence of shear flow near a rigid wall is poorly understood. We conduct direct simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations to explore the bubble dynamics and pressures during bubble collapse near a rigid, flat wall under linear shear flow conditions. We examine the dependence of the bubble collapse morphology and wall pressures on the initial bubble location and shear rate. We find that shear distorts the bubble, generating two re-entrant jets – one developing from the side opposite to the mean flow and the other from the far end toward the wall. Upon impact of the jet on the opposite side of the bubble, water-hammer shocks are produced, which propagate outward and interact with the convoluted bubble shape. The shock stretches the bubble towards the wall, resulting in a closer impact location for the jet originating from the far end compared with the case with no shear flow. The water-hammer pressure location can be approximated as the theoretical distance travelled by a particle initialised at the bubble centre with the corresponding constant shear flow velocity. The maximum wall pressures can thus be predicted by considering the distance between the far jet impingement location and the wall along the wall-normal direction. As the shear rate is increased, the maximum wall pressure increases, although only marginally. We determine the critical initial stand-off distance from the wall at which the bubble morphology is shear dominated, i.e. characterised by converging re-entrant jets.

We derive a mathematical model for steady, unidirectional, thermoelectric magnetohydrodynamic (TEMHD) flow of liquid lithium along a solid metal trench, subject to an imposed heat flux. We use a finite-element method implemented in COMSOL Multiphysics to solve the problem numerically, demonstrating how the fluid velocity, induced magnetic field and temperature change depending on the key physical and geometrical parameters. The observed flow structures are elucidated by using the method of matched asymptotic expansions to obtain approximate solutions in the limit where the Hartmann number is large and the trench walls are thin.

We introduce a new model equation for Stokes gravity waves based on conformal transformations of Euler's equations. The local version of the model equation is relevant for the dynamics of shallow water waves. It allows us to characterize the travelling periodic waves both in the case of smooth and peaked waves and to solve the existence problem exactly, albeit not in elementary functions. Spectral stability of smooth waves with respect to co-periodic perturbations is proven analytically based on the exact count of eigenvalues in a constrained spectral problem.

The controllability of passive microparticles that are advected with the fluid flow generated by an actively controlled one is studied. The particles are assumed to be suspended in a viscous fluid and well separated so that the far-field Stokes flow solutions may be used to describe their interactions. Explicit elementary moves parametrized by an amplitude $\varepsilon >0$ are devised for the active particle. Applying concepts from geometric control theory, the leading-order resulting displacements of the passive particles in the limit $\varepsilon \to 0$ are used to propose strategies for moving one active particle and one or two passive particles, proving controllability in such systems. The leading-order (in $\varepsilon$) theoretical predictions of the particle displacements are compared with those obtained numerically and it is found that the discrepancy is small even when $\varepsilon \approx 1$. These results demonstrate the potential for a single actuated particle to perform complex micromanipulations of passive particles in a suspension.

We identify forcing mechanisms that separately amplify subsonic and supersonic features obtained from a linearised Navier–Stokes based model for compressible parallel boundary layers. Resolvent analysis is used to analyse the linear model, where the nonlinear terms of the linearised equations act as a forcing to the linear terms. Considering subsonic modes, only the solenoidal component of the forcing to the momentum equations amplify these modes. When considering supersonic modes, we find that these are pressure fluctuations that radiate into the free stream. Within the free stream, these modes closely follow the trends of inviscid Mach waves. There are two distinct forcing mechanisms that amplify the supersonic modes: (i) the ‘direct route’, where the forcing to the continuity and energy equations and the dilatational component of the forcing to the momentum equations directly force the mode; and (ii) the ‘indirect route’, where the solenoidal component of the forcing to the momentum equations force a response in wall-normal velocity, and this wall-normal velocity in turn forces the supersonic mode. A majority of the supersonic modes considered are dominantly forced by the direct route. However, when considering Mach waves that are, like in direct numerical simulations, forced from the buffer layer of the flow, the indirect route of forcing becomes significant. We find that these observations are also valid for a streamwise developing boundary layer. These results are consistent with, and extend, the observations in the literature regarding the solenoidal and dilatational components of velocity in compressible turbulent wall-bounded flows.

Premixed hydrogen flames are prone to thermodiffusive instabilities due to strong differential diffusion effects. Reproducing these instabilities in large eddy simulations (LES), where their effects are only partially resolved, is challenging. Combustion models that account for differential diffusion effects have been developed for laminar flames, but to use them in LES, models for the turbulence/flame subfilter interactions are required. Modelling of the subfilter interactions is particularly challenging as instabilities synergistically interact with turbulence resulting in a strong enhancement of the turbulent flame speed. In this work, a combustion model for LES, which accounts for thermodiffusive instabilities and their interactions with turbulence, is presented. In the first part, an a priori analysis based on a direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a turbulent hydrogen/air jet flame is discussed. Progress variable, progress variable variance and mixture fraction are rigorously identified as suitable model input parameters, and an LES combustion model based on pre-tabulated unstretched premixed flamelets with varying equivalence ratio is formulated. Subfilter closure is achieved via a presumed probability density function and a significant reduction of modelling errors is achieved with the presented model. In the second part, LES of the DNS configuration are performed for an a posteriori analysis. The presented combustion model shows significant improvements in predicting the flame length and local phenomena, such as super-adiabatic temperature, compared with combustion models that either neglect differential diffusion effects or consider these effects but neglect the subfilter closure. Two variants of the model formulation with a water- or hydrogen-based progress variable have been tested, yielding overall similar predictions.

The current study characterizes the attenuation of instabilities in steady and unsteady shear layers by investigating shear-thinning flows downstream of a confined axisymmetric sudden expansion. Flow fields were captured using particle image velocimetry. Tested fluids exhibited approximate power-law indices of 1, 0.81, 0.61 and 0.47 and measurements were performed at mean throat-based Reynolds numbers of ${Re_m} = 4800$ and 14 400. Unsteady flows were tested at a Strouhal number and amplitude-to-mean velocity ratio of $St = 0.15$ and $\lambda = 0.95$, respectively. For unsteady shear layers, shear-layer roll-up regardless of shear-thinning strength was evidenced by collapse of average circulation over time. For steady shear layers, consistent shear-layer behaviour regardless of shear-thinning strength was evidenced by similar shear-layer trajectories and by growth rates in vorticity thickness. However, vorticity fields of the unsteady and steady shear layers, standard deviations of shear-layer trajectory, thickness of steady shear layers and Reynolds shear-stress spectra of the steady shear layers reveal an attenuation of shear-layer instabilities not captured by Reynolds number. Specifically, shear-layer instabilities exhibit increased diffusion with increasing shear-thinning strength and, in the case of steady shear layers, shear-thinning strength is shown to promote shear-layer stabilization. Also, evidenced by vorticity fields and through Reynolds shear-stress spectra, instabilities frequently coalesce into large rollers, a result that would suggest the presence of an inverse eddy cascade. The behaviour of shear-thinning fluids is shown to stabilize shear layers through attenuating shear-layer instabilities, complementing observations from previous studies showing how shear-thinning fluids promote turbulence in the dominant flow direction.

In this paper, we study the rapid transition in Richtmyer–Meshkov instability (RMI) with reshock through three-dimensional double-layer swirling vortex rings. The rapid transition in RMI with reshock has an essential influence on the evolution of supernovas and the ignition of inertial confinement fusion, which has been confirmed in numerical simulations and experiments in shock-tube and high-energy-density facilities over the past few years. Vortex evolution has been confirmed to dominate the late-time nonlinear development of the perturbed interface. However, few studies have investigated the three-dimensional characteristics and nonlinear interactions among vortex structures during the transition to turbulent flows. The coexistence of co-rotating and counter-rotating vortices is hypothesized to induce successive large-scale strain fields, which are the main driving sources for rapid development. The three-dimensional effect is reflected in the presence of local swirling motion in the azimuthal direction, and it decreases the translation velocity of a vortex ring. Large-, middle- and small-scale strain fields are employed to describe the development process of RMI with reshock, e.g. vorticity deposited by the reshock, formation of the coexistence of the co-rotating and counter-rotating vortices, iterative cascade under the amplification of the strain fields and viscous dissipation to internal energy. This provides theoretical suggestions for designing practical applications, such as the estimation of the hydrodynamic instability and mixing during the late-time acceleration phase of the inertial confinement fusion.

The Hele-Shaw–Cahn–Hilliard model, coupled with phase separation, is numerically simulated to demonstrate the formation of anomalous fingering patterns in a radial displacement of a partially miscible binary-fluid system. The composition of injected fluid is set to be less viscous than the displaced fluid and within the spinodal or metastable phase-separated region, in which the second derivative of the free energy is negative or positive, respectively. Because of phase separation, concentration evolves non-monotonically between the injected and displaced fluids. The simulations reveal four areas of the concentration distribution between the fluids: the inner core; the low-concentration grooves/high-concentration ridges; the isolated fluid fragments or droplets; the mixing zone. The grooves/ridges and the fragments/droplets, which are the unique features of phase separation, form in the spinodal and metastable regions. Four typical types of patterns are categorized: core separation (CS); fingering separation (FS); separation fingering (SF); lollipop fingering, in the order of the dominance of phase separation, respectively. For the patterns of CS and FS, isolated fluid fragments or droplets around the inner core are the main features. Fingering formation is better maintained with droplets in the SF pattern if the phase separation is relatively weaker than viscous fingering (VF). Even continuous fingers are well preserved in the case of dominant VF; phase separation results in lollipop-shaped fingers. The evolving trend of the patterns is in line with the experiments. These patterns are summarized in a pattern diagram, mainly by the magnitude of the second derivative of the free energy profile.

Large-eddy simulations (LES) of a hypersonic boundary layer on a $7^\circ$-half-angle cone are performed to investigate the effects of highly cooled walls (wall-to-recovery temperature ratio of $T_w / T_r \sim 0.1$) on fully developed turbulence and to validate a newly developed rescaling method based on volumetric flow extraction. Two Reynolds numbers are considered, $Re_m = 4.1 \times 10^6\ \text {m}^{-1}$ and $6.4 \times 10^6\ \text {m}^{-1}$, at free-stream Mach numbers of $M_\infty = 7.4$. A comparison with a reference laminar-to-turbulent simulation, capturing the full history of the transitional flow dynamics, reveals that the volumetric rescaling method can generate a synthetic turbulent inflow that preserves the structure of the fluctuations. Equilibrium conditions are recovered after approximately 40 inlet boundary layer thicknesses. Numerical trials show that a longer streamwise extent of the rescaling box increases numerical stability. Analyses of turbulent statistics and flow visualizations reveal strong pressure oscillations, up to $50\,\%$ of local mean pressure near the wall, and two-dimensional longitudinal wave structures resembling second-mode waves, with wavelengths up to 50 % of the boundary layer thickness, and convective Mach numbers of $M_c \simeq 4.5$. It is shown that their quasi-periodic recurrence in the flow is not an artefact of the rescaling method. Strong and localized temperature fluctuations and spikes in the wall-heat flux are associated with such waves. Very high values of temperature variance near the wall result in oscillations of the wall-heat flux exceeding its average. Instances of near-wall temperature falling below the imposed wall temperature of $T_w=300$ K result in pockets of instantaneous heat flux oriented against the statistical mean direction.

The continental plates of Earth are known to drift over a geophysical time scale, and their interactions have led to some of the most spectacular geoformations of our planet while also causing natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. Understanding the dynamics of interacting continental plates is thus significant. In this work, we present a fluid mechanical investigation of the plate motion, interaction and dynamics. Through numerical experiments, we examine the coupling between a convective fluid and plates floating on top of it. With physical modelling, we show the coupling is both mechanical and thermal, leading to the thermal blanket effect: the floating plate is not only transported by the fluid flow beneath, it also prevents the heat from leaving the fluid, leading to a convective flow that further affects the plate motion. By adding several plates to such a coupled fluid–structure interaction, we also investigate how floating plates interact with each other, and show that under proper conditions, small plates can converge into a supercontinent.

The dynamics of evolving fluid films in the viscous Stokes limit is relevant to various applications, such as the modelling of lipid bilayers in cells. While the governing equations were formulated by Scriven (1960), solving for the flow of a deformable viscous surface with arbitrary shape and topology has remained a challenge. In this study, we present a straightforward discrete model based on variational principles to address this long-standing problem. We replace the classical equations, which are expressed with tensor calculus in local coordinates, with a simple coordinate-free, differential-geometric formulation. The formulation provides a fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanics and translates directly to discretization. We construct a discrete analogue of the system using Onsager's variational principle, which, in a smooth context, governs the flow of a viscous medium. In the discrete setting, instead of term-wise discretizing the coordinate-based Stokes equations, we construct a discrete Rayleighian for the system and derive the discrete Stokes equations via the variational principle. This approach results in a stable, structure-preserving variational integrator that solves the system on general manifolds.

Ciliated microorganisms near the base of the aquatic food chain either swim to encounter prey or attach at a substrate and generate feeding currents to capture passing particles. Here, we represent attached and swimming ciliates using a popular spherical model in viscous fluid with slip surface velocity that affords analytical expressions of ciliary flows. We solve an advection–diffusion equation for the concentration of dissolved nutrients, where the Péclet number ($Pe$) reflects the ratio of diffusive to advective time scales. For a fixed hydrodynamic power expenditure, we ask what ciliary surface velocities maximize nutrient flux at the microorganism's surface. We find that surface motions that optimize feeding depend on $Pe$. For freely swimming microorganisms at finite $Pe$, it is optimal to swim by employing a ‘treadmill’ surface motion, but in the limit of large $Pe$, there is no difference between this treadmill solution and a symmetric dipolar surface velocity that keeps the organism stationary. For attached microorganisms, the treadmill solution is optimal for feeding at $Pe$ below a critical value, but at larger $Pe$ values, the dipolar surface motion is optimal. We verified these results in open-loop numerical simulations and asymptotic analysis, and using an adjoint-based optimization method. Our findings challenge existing claims that optimal feeding is optimal swimming across all Péclet numbers, and provide new insights into the prevalence of both attached and swimming solutions in oceanic microorganisms.

Poiseuille flow is a fundamental flow in fluid mechanics and is driven by a pressure gradient in a channel. Although the rheology of active particle suspensions has been investigated extensively, knowledge of the Poiseuille flow of such suspensions is lacking. In this study, dynamic simulations of a suspension of active particles in Poiseuille flow, situated between two parallel walls, were conducted by Stokesian dynamics assuming negligible inertia. Active particles were modelled as spherical squirmers. In the case of inert spheres in Poiseuille flow, the distribution of spheres between the walls was layered. In the case of non-bottom-heavy squirmers, on the other hand, the layers collapsed and the distribution became more uniform. This led to a much larger pressure drop for the squirmers than for the inert spheres. The effects of volume fraction, swimming mode, swimming speed and the wall separation on the pressure drop were investigated. When the squirmers were bottom heavy, they accumulated at the channel centre in downflow, whereas they accumulated near the walls in upflow, as observed in former experiments. The difference in squirmer configuration alters the hydrodynamic force on the wall and hence the pressure drop and effective viscosity. In upflow, pusher squirmers induced a considerably larger pressure drop, while neutral and puller squirmers could even generate negative pressure drops, i.e. spontaneous flow could occur. While previous studies have reported negative viscosity of pusher suspensions, this study shows that the effective viscosity of bottom-heavy puller suspensions can be negative for Poiseuille upflow, which is a new finding. The knowledge obtained is important for understanding channel flow of active suspensions.

Even though liquid foams are ubiquitous in everyday life and industrial processes, their ageing and eventual destruction remain a puzzling problem. Soap films are known to drain through marginal regeneration, which depends upon periodic patterns of film thickness along the rim of the film. The origin of these patterns in horizontal films (i.e. neglecting gravity) still resists theoretical modelling. In this work, we theoretically address the case of a flat horizontal film with a thickness perturbation, either positive (a bump) or negative (a groove), which is initially invariant under translation along one direction. This pattern relaxes towards a flat film by capillarity. By performing a linear stability analysis on this evolving pattern, we demonstrate that the invariance is spontaneously broken, causing the elongated thickness perturbation pattern to destabilise into a necklace of circular spots. The unstable and stable modes are derived analytically in well-defined limits, and the full evolution of the thickness profile is characterised. The original destabilisation process we identify may be relevant to explain the appearance of the marginal regeneration patterns near a meniscus and thus shed new light on soap-film drainage.

This study investigates experimentally the pressure fluctuations of liquids in a column under short-time acceleration. It demonstrates that the Strouhal number $St=L/(c\,\Delta t)$, where $L$, $c$ and $\Delta t$ are the liquid column length, speed of sound, and acceleration duration, respectively, provides a measure of the pressure fluctuations for intermediate $St$ values. On the one hand, the incompressible fluid theory implies that the magnitude of the averaged pressure fluctuation $\bar {P}$ becomes negligible for $St\ll 1$. On the other hand, the water hammer theory predicts that the pressure tends to $\rho cu_0$ (where $u_0$ is the change in the liquid velocity) for $St\geq O(1)$. For intermediate $St$ values, there is no consensus on the value of $\bar {P}$. In our experiments, $L$, $c$ and $\Delta t$ are varied so that $0.02 \leq St \leq 2.2$. The results suggest that the incompressible fluid theory holds only up to $St\sim 0.2$, and that $St$ governs the pressure fluctuations under different experimental conditions for higher $St$ values. The data relating to a hydrogel also tend to collapse to a unified trend. The inception of cavitation in the liquid starts at $St\sim 0.2$ for various $\Delta t$, indicating that the liquid pressure goes lower than the liquid vapour pressure. To understand this mechanism, we employ a one-dimensional wave propagation model with a pressure wavefront of finite thickness that scales with $\Delta t$. The model provides a reasonable description of the experimental results as a function of $St$.

We seek the conditions in which Alfvén waves (AW) can be produced in laboratory-scale liquid metal experiments, i.e. at low magnetic Reynolds Number ($Rm$). Alfvén waves are incompressible waves propagating along magnetic fields typically found in geophysical and astrophysical systems. Despite the high values of $Rm$ in these flows, AW can undergo high dissipation in thin regions, for example in the solar corona where anomalous heating occurs (Davila, Astrophys. J., vol. 317, 1987, p. 514; Singh & Subramanian, Sol. Phys., vol. 243, 2007, pp. 163–169). Understanding how AW dissipate energy and studying their nonlinear regime in controlled laboratory conditions may thus offer a convenient alternative to observations to understand these mechanisms at a fundamental level. Until now, however, only linear waves have been experimentally produced in liquid metals because of the large magnetic dissipation they undergo when $Rm\ll 1$ and the conditions of their existence at low $Rm$ are not understood. To address these questions, we force AW with an alternating electric current in a liquid metal in a transverse magnetic field. We provide the first mathematical derivation of a wave-bearing extension of the usual low-$Rm$ magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) approximation to identify two linear regimes: the purely diffusive regime exists when $N_{\omega }$, the ratio of the oscillation period to the time scale of diffusive two-dimensionalisation by the Lorentz force, is small; the propagative regime is governed by the ratio of the forcing period to the AW propagation time scale, which we call the Jameson number $Ja$ after (Jameson, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 19, issue 4, 1964, pp. 513–527). In this regime, AW are dissipative and dispersive as they propagate more slowly where transverse velocity gradients are higher. Both regimes are recovered in the FlowCube experiment (Pothérat & Klein, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 761, 2014, pp. 168–205), in excellent agreement with the model up to $Ja \lesssim 0.85$ but near the $Ja=1$ resonance, high amplitude waves become clearly nonlinear. Hence, in electrically driving AW, we identified the purely diffusive MHD regime, the regime where linear, dispersive AW propagate, and the regime of nonlinear propagation.

Vesicles are important surrogate structures made up of multiple phospholipids and cholesterol distributed in the form of a lipid bilayer. Tubular vesicles can undergo pearling – i.e. formation of beads on the liquid thread akin to the Rayleigh–Plateau instability. Previous studies have inspected the effects of surface tension on the pearling instabilities of single-component vesicles. In this study, we perform a linear stability analysis on a multicomponent cylindrical vesicle. We solve the Stokes equations along with the Cahn–Hilliard equation to develop the linearized dynamic equations governing the vesicle shape and surface concentration fields. This helps us to show that multicomponent vesicles can undergo pearling, buckling and wrinkling even in the absence of surface tension, which is a significantly different result from studies on single-component vesicles. This behaviour arises due to the competition between the free energies of phase separation, line tension and bending for this multi-phospholipid system. We determine the conditions under which axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric modes are dominant, and supplement our results with an energy analysis that shows the sources for these instabilities. Lastly, we delve into a weakly nonlinear analysis where we solve the nonlinear Cahn–Hilliard equation in the weak deformation limit to understand how mode-mixing alters the late time dynamics of coarsening. We show that in many situations, the trends from our simulations qualitatively match recent experiments (Yanagisawa et al., Phys. Rev. E, vol. 82, 2010, p. 051928).