The flow induced by a spherical particle spinning in the presence of no-slip planar boundaries is studied by numerical means. In addition to the reference case of an infinite fluid, the situations considered include a sphere rotating near one or two infinite plane walls parallel or perpendicular to the axis of rotation and a sphere centred within a cube. The hydrodynamic force and couple acting on the sphere exhibit a complex behaviour under the sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating action of viscous, inertial and centrifugal effects.

Given the complexity of the problem of the impact of a mass of liquid on a solid structure, various simplified models have been introduced in order to obtain some insight on particular aspects of the problem. Here the steady flow of a jet falling from a vertical pipe, hitting a horizontal plate and flowing sideways is considered. Depending on the elevation H of the pipe relative to the horizontal plate and the Froude number F, the flow can either leave the pipe tangentially or detach from the edge of the pipe. When the flow leaves tangentially, it can either be diverted immediately by the plate or experience squeezing before being diverted. First, the problem is reformulated using conformal mappings. The resulting problem is then solved by a collocation Galerkin method; a particular form is assumed for the solution, and certain coefficients in that representation are then found numerically by satisfying Bernoulli's equation on the free surfaces at certain discrete points. The resulting equations are solved by Newton's method, yielding various configurations of the solution based on the values of F and H. The pressure exerted on the plate is computed and discussed. For a fixed value of F, the maximum pressure along the plate goes through a minimum as H increases from small to large values. Results are presented for the three possible configurations: (i) tangential departure from the pipe and no squeezing, (ii) tangential departure from the pipe followed by squeezing of the liquid and (iii) detachment of the liquid from the pipe (with subsequent squeezing).

In this paper we present a new method to derive Boussinesq-type equations from a variational principle. These equations are valid for nonlinear surface-water waves propagating over bathymetry. The vertical structure of the flow, required in the Hamiltonian, is approximated by a (series of) vertical shape functions associated with unknown parameter(s). It is not necessary to make approximations with respect to the nonlinearity of the waves. The resulting approximate Hamiltonian is positive definite, contributing to the good dynamical behaviour of the resulting equations. The resulting flow equations consist of temporal equations for the surface elevation and potential, as well as a (set of) elliptic equations for some auxiliary parameter(s). All equations only contain low-order spatial derivatives and no mixed time–space derivatives. Since one of the parameters, the surface potential, can be associated with a uniform shape function, the resulting equations are very well suited for wave–current interacting flows.

The variational method is applied to two simple models, one with a parabolic vertical shape function and the other with a hyperbolic-cosine vertical structure. For both, as well as the general series model, the flow equations are derived. Linear dispersion and shoaling are studied using the average Lagrangian. The model with a parabolic vertical shape function has improved frequency dispersion, as compared to classical Boussinesq models. The model with a hyperbolic-cosine vertical structure can be made to have exact phase and group velocity, as well as shoaling, for a certain frequency.

For the model with a parabolic vertical structure, numerical computations are done with a one-dimensional pseudo-spectral code. These show the nonlinear capabilities for periodic waves over a horizontal bed and an underwater bar. Further some long-distance computations for soliton wave groups over bathymetry are presented.

In this paper, self-motion of reactive colloids and their dispersion behaviour are theoretically examined. The motion is driven by an osmotic force imbalance arising from non-uniform atmospheres of reactive solutes around the colloids. The propulsion here is not limited to Janus-like particles. It can also occur to particles having ‘uniform’ reactivity due to the more universal mechanism – entropic anisotropy created by breaking in rotational symmetry. The idea is demonstrated by examining the motion of a reactive particle due to asymmetry in its shape or to the presence of an additional particle. In the two-particle problem, in particular, we find that sink (source) particles can self-migrate towards (apart from) each other at velocities varying as R−2, resembling Coulomb attraction (repulsion), where R is the inter-particle distance. Because of this Coulomb-like nature, a suspension of sink particles could undergo collective flocculation due to unscreened osmotic attraction. The criterion for an occurrence of the flocculation is also established. It reveals that the flocculation can occur if the particle volume fraction is within a certain window in terms of the solute concentration and the particle reactivity. The stability of reactive suspensions is also discussed using the modified Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (DLVO) theory that takes account of the competition between long-range reaction-induced osmotic forces and short-range colloidal forces. A more generalized view for the present self-driven particle motion is elucidated by a simple scaling theory, providing lucid accounts for the self-motion of two particles, composite bodies, and Janus particles – all are driven by dipolar distortions in potential energy. Comparison with phoretic self-swimmers is also discussed.

Recent research (Zeng, PhD thesis, 2007; Zeng et al., Phys. Fluids, vol. 21, 2009, art. no. 033302) has shown that both the shear- and wall-induced lift contributions on a particle sharply increase as the gap between the wall and the particle is decreased. Explicit expressions that are valid over a range of finite Re were obtained for the drag and lift forces in the limiting cases of a stationary particle in wall-bounded linear flow and of a particle translating parallel to a wall in a quiescent ambient. Here we consider the more general case of a translating and rotating particle in a wall-bounded linear shear flow where shear, translational and rotational effects superpose. We have considered a modest Reynolds number range of 1–100. Direct numerical simulations using immersed boundary method were performed to systematically figure out the characteristics of hydrodynamic forces on a finite-sized particle moving while almost in contact with a wall. We present composite correlation for the hydrodynamic forces which are in agreement with all the available low-Reynolds-number theories.

In a previous work, Kataoka & Tsutahara (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 512, 2004a, p. 211) proved the existence of longitudinally stable but transversely unstable surface solitary waves by asymptotic analysis for disturbances of small transverse wavenumber. In the present paper, the same transverse instability is examined numerically for the whole range of solitary-wave amplitudes and transverse wavenumbers of disturbances. Numerical results show that eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of growing disturbance modes agree well with those obtained by the asymptotic analysis if the transverse wavenumber of the disturbance is small. As the transverse wavenumber increases, however, the growth rate of the disturbance, which is an increasing function for small wavenumbers, reaches a maximum and finally falls to zero at some finite wavenumber. Thus, there is a high-wavenumber cutoff to the transverse instability. For higher amplitude, solitary waves become longitudinally unstable, and the dependence of the eigenvalues on the transverse wavenumber exhibits various complicated patterns. We found that such eigenvalues versus transverse wavenumber can be simply grouped into three basic classes.

A large database from direct numerical simulations of isotropic turbulence, including recent simulations for box sizes up to 40963 and the Taylor–Reynolds number Rλ ≈ 1000, is used to investigate the bottleneck effect in the three-dimensional energy spectrum and second-order structure functions, and to determine the Kolmogorov constant, CK. The difficulties in estimating CK at any finite Reynolds number, introduced by intermittency and the bottleneck, are assessed. The data conclusively show that the bottleneck effect decreases with the Reynolds number. On this basis, an alternative to the usual procedure for determining CK is suggested; this proposal does not depend on the particular choices of fitting ranges or power-law behaviour in the inertial range. Within the resolution of the numerical data, CK thus determined is a Reynolds-number-independent constant of ≈1.58 in the three-dimensional spectrum. A simple model including non-local transfer is proposed to reproduce the observed scaling features of the bottleneck.

Drag reduction (DR) under a turbulent boundary layer implies the suppression of turbulent momentum flux to the wall, a large-eddy phenomenon. Our hypothesis is that the essential mechanisms by which dilute concentrations of long-chain polymer molecules reduce momentum flux involve only the interactions among turbulent velocity fluctuations, polymer molecules and mean shear. Experiments indicate that these interactions dominate in a polymer-active ‘elastic layer’ outside the viscous sublayer and below a Newtonian inertial layer in a polymer-laden turbulent boundary layer. We investigate our hypothesis by modelling the suppression of momentum flux with direct numerical simulation (DNS) of homogeneous turbulent shear flow (HTSF) and the finite extensible nonlinear elastic with Peterlin approximation (FENE-P) model for polymer stress. The polymer conformation tensor equation was solved using a new hyperbolic algorithm with no artificial diffusion. We report here on the equilibrium state with fixed mean shear rate S, where progressive increases in non-dimensional polymer relaxation time WeS (shear Weissenberg number) or concentration parameter 1 − β produced progressive reductions in Reynolds shear stress, turbulence kinetic energy and turbulence dissipation rate, concurrent with increasing polymer stress and elastic potential energy. The changes in statistical variables underlying polymer DR with 1 − β, WeS, %DR and polymer-induced changes to spectra are similar to experiments in channel and pipe flows and show that the experimentally measured increase in normalized streamwise velocity variance is an indirect consequence of DR that is true only at lower DR. Comparison of polymer stretch and elastic potential energy budgets with channel flow DNS showed qualitative correspondence when distance from the wall was correlated to WeS. As WeS increased, the homogeneous shear flow displayed low-DR, high-DR and maximum-DR (MDR) regimes, similar to experiments, with each regime displaying distinctly different polymer–turbulence physics. The suppression of turbulent momentum flux arises from the suppression of vertical velocity fluctuations primarily by polymer-induced suppression of slow pressure–strain rate correlations. In the high-Weissenberg-number MDR-like limit, the polymer nearly completely blocks Newtonian inter-component energy transfer to vertical velocity fluctuations and turbulence is maintained by the polymer contribution to pressure–strain rate. Our analysis from HTSF with the FENE-P representation of polymer stress and its comparisons with experimental and DNS studies of wall-bounded polymer–turbulence supports our central hypothesis that the essential mechanisms underlying polymer DR lie directly in the suppression of momentum flux by polymer–turbulence interactions in the presence of mean shear and indirectly in the presence of the wall as the shear-generating mechanism.

An experimental investigation to establish the maximum rise height zm attained by a finite volume of fluid forced impulsively vertically upwards against its buoyancy into quiescent surroundings of uniform density is described. In the absence of a density contrast, the release propagates as a vortex ring and the vertical trajectory is limited by viscous effects. On increasing the source density of the release, gravitational effects limit the trajectory and a maximum rise height zm is reached. For these negatively buoyant releases, the dependence of zm on the length L of the column of ejected fluid, nozzle diameter D (= 2r0), dispensing time and source reduced gravity is determined by injecting saline solution into a fresh-water environment. For 3.4 ≲ L/D ≲ 9.0, zm/r0 is shown to scale on the source parameter η = Fr(L/D), a product of the source Froude number Fr and the aspect ratio L/D for the finite-volume release. Our results show that the morphology of the cap that develops above the source and the vortical motion induced within are sensitively dependent on the source conditions. Moreover, three rise-height regimes are identified: ‘weak-fountain-transition’, ‘vorticity-development’ and ‘forced-release’ regimes, each with a distinct morphology and dependence of dimensionless rise height on η.

A procedure for constructing two-dimensional incompressible potential flowfield solutions with separation and a recirculation region is presented. It naturally makes use of complex variable theory and other analysis techniques such as conformal mapping and the generalized Poisson integral formula. Flowfield determination is reduced to solution of a boundary value problem in various simple domains. The entire velocity field is described analytically; stream function and velocity potential contour maps are readily constructed. Example solutions are presented. Solutions for sharp leading edge airfoils at arbitrary angle of attack are completely determined, including the limiting angle of attack for upper-surface flow re-attachment. For other configurations (e.g. circular cylinder, backward-facing step) the analytical solution contains one or more free parameters, whose values may be inferred from boundary layer theory or experiment.

Turbulent fountains are of major interest for many natural phenomena and industrial applications, and can be considered as one of the canonical examples of turbulent flows. They have been the object of extensive experimental and theoretical studies that yielded scaling laws describing the behaviour of the fountains as a function of source conditions (namely their Reynolds and Froude numbers). However, although such scaling laws provide a clear understanding of the basic dynamics of the turbulent fountains, they usually rely on more or less ad hoc dimensionless proportionality constants that are scarcely tested against theoretical predictions. In this paper, we use a systematic comparison between the initial and steady-state heights of a turbulent fountain predicted by classical top-hat models and those obtained in experiments. This shows scaling agreement between predictions and observations, but systematic discrepancies regarding the proportionality constant. For the initial rise of turbulent fountains, we show that quantitative agreement between top-hat models and experiments can be achieved by taking into account two factors: (i) the reduction of entrainment by negative buoyancy (as quantified by the Froude number), and (ii) the fact that turbulence is not fully developed at the source at intermediate Reynolds number. For the steady-state rise of turbulent fountains, a new model (‘confined top-hat’) is developed to take into account the coupling between the up-flow and the down-flow in the steady-state fountain. The model introduces three parameters, calculated from integrals of experimental profiles, that highlight the dynamics of turbulent entrainment between the up-flow and the down-flow, as well as the change of buoyancy flux with height in the up-flow. The confined top-hat model for turbulent fountains achieves good agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results. In particular, it predicts a systematic increase of the ratio between the initial and steady-state heights of turbulent fountains as a function of their source Froude number, an observation that was not handled properly in previous models.

The structure of stationary adiabatic premixed flames within porous inert media under intense interphase heat transfer is investigated using the asymptotic expansion method. For the pore sizes of interest for combustion in porous inert media, this condition is reached for extremely lean mixtures where lower flame velocities are found. The flame structure is analysed in three distinct regions. In the outer region (the solid-phase diffusion length scale), both phases are in local thermal equilibrium and the problem formulation is reduced to the one-equation model for the energy conservation. In the first inner region (the gas-phase diffusion length scale), there is local thermal non-equilibrium and two equations for the energy conservation are required. In this region, the gas-phase temperature at the flame is limited by the interphase heat transfer. In the second inner region (the reaction length scale), the chemical reaction occurs in a very thin zone where the highest gas-phase temperature is found. The results showed that superadiabatic effects are reduced for leaner mixtures, smaller pore sizes and smaller fuel Lewis numbers. The results also show that there is a minimum superadiabatic temperature for the flame propagation to be possible, which corresponds to the lean flammability limit for the premixed combustion in porous inert media. A parameter that universalizes the leading-order flame properties is identified and discussed.

We present the results of a combined experimental and numerical study of the generation of internal waves using the novel internal wave generator design of Gostiaux et al. (Exp. Fluids, vol. 42, 2007, pp. 123–130). This mechanism, which involves a tunable source composed of oscillating plates, has so far been used for a few fundamental studies of internal waves, but its full potential is yet to be realized. Our study reveals that this approach is capable of producing a wide variety of two-dimensional wave fields, including plane waves, wave beams and discrete vertical modes in finite-depth stratifications. The effects of discretization by a finite number of plates, forcing amplitude and angle of propagation are investigated, and it is found that the method is remarkably efficient at generating a complete wave field despite forcing only one velocity component in a controllable manner. We furthermore find that the nature of the radiated wave field is well predicted using Fourier transforms of the spatial structure of the wave generator.

The behaviour of the velocity and pressure fluctuations in the outer layers of wall-bounded turbulent flows is analysed by comparing a new simulation of the zero-pressure-gradient boundary layer with older simulations of channels. The 99 % boundary-layer thickness is used as a reasonable analogue of the channel half-width, but the two flows are found to be too different for the analogy to be complete. In agreement with previous results, it is found that the fluctuations of the transverse velocities and of the pressure are stronger in the boundary layer, and this is traced to the pressure fluctuations induced in the outer intermittent layer by the differences between the potential and rotational flow regions. The same effect is also shown to be responsible for the stronger wake component of the mean velocity profile in external flows, whose increased energy production is the ultimate reason for the stronger fluctuations. Contrary to some previous results by our group, and by others, the streamwise velocity fluctuations are also found to be higher in boundary layers, although the effect is weaker. Within the limitations of the non-parallel nature of the boundary layer, the wall-parallel scales of all the fluctuations are similar in both the flows, suggesting that the scale-selection mechanism resides just below the intermittent region, y/δ = 0.3–0.5. This is also the location of the largest differences in the intensities, although the limited Reynolds number of the boundary-layer simulation (Reθ ≈ 2000) prevents firm conclusions on the scaling of this location. The statistics of the new boundary layer are available from http://torroja.dmt.upm.es/ftp/blayers/.

The interaction of a normal shock wave with a turbulent boundary layer developing over a flat plate at free-stream Mach number M∞ = 1.3 and Reynolds number Reθ ≈ 1200 (based on the momentum thickness of the upstream boundary layer) is analysed by means of direct numerical simulation of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. The computational methodology is based on a hybrid linear/weighted essentially non-oscillatory conservative finite-difference approach, whereby the switch is controlled by the local regularity of the solution, so as to minimize numerical dissipation. As found in experiments, the mean flow pattern consists of an upstream fan of compression waves associated with the thickening of the boundary layer, and the supersonic region is terminated by a nearly normal shock, with substantial bending of the interacting shock. At the selected conditions the flow does not exhibit separation in the mean. However, the interaction region is characterized by ‘intermittent transitory detachment’ with scattered spots of instantaneous flow reversal throughout the interaction zone, and by the formation of a turbulent mixing layer, with associated unsteady release of vortical structures. As found in supersonic impinging shock interactions, we observe a different amplification of the longitudinal Reynolds stress component with respect to the others. Indeed, the effect of the adverse pressure gradient is to reduce the mean shear, with subsequent suppression of the near-wall streaks, and isotropization of turbulence. The recovery of the boundary layer past the interaction zone follows a quasi-equilibrium process, characterized by a self-similar distribution of the mean flow properties.

The Reynolds stress associated with the adjustment of two-dimensional isotropic eddies subject to a large-scale shear flow is examined in a series of initial-value calculations in a periodic channel. Several stages in the temporal evolution of the stress can be identified. Initially, there is a brief period associated with quasi-passive straining of the eddy field in which the net Reynolds stress and the associated eddy viscosity remain essentially zero. In spectral space this is characterized by mutual cancellation of contributions to the Reynolds stress at high and low eddy wavenumbers. Subsequently, eddy–eddy interactions produce a tendency to restore isotropy at higher eddy wavenumbers, leading to an overall positive eddy viscosity associated with the dominant contribution to the Reynolds stress at low eddy wavenumbers. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions of positive eddy viscosity for initially isotropic homogeneous two-dimensional turbulence. Due to the inverse cascade, the accumulation with time of energy at the scale of the channel produces a competing tendency to negative eddy viscosity associated with linear shearing of the disturbances. This finite-domain effect may become dominant if the nonlinearity of the eddy field is relatively weak.

A new nonlinear travelling-wave solution for a flow through an isothermal square duct is discovered. The solution is found by a continuation approach in parameter space, starting from a case where the fluid is heated internally. The Reynolds number for which the travelling wave emerges is much lower than that of the solutions discovered recently by an analysis based on the self-sustaining process (Wedin et al., Phys. Rev. E, vol. 79, 2009, p. 065305; Uhlmann et al., Advances in Turbulence XII, 2009, pp. 585–588). Furthermore, the new travelling-wave solution is shown to be unstable from the onset.

We present a theoretical and numerical study of three-dimensional pulsatile confined flow between two rigid horizontal surfaces separated by an average gap h, and having three-dimensional wavy shapes with arbitrary amplitude σh where σ ~ O(1), but long-wavelength variations λ, with h/λ ≪ 1. We are interested in pulsating flows with moderate inertial effect arising from the Reynolds stress due to the cavity non-parallelism. We analyse the inertial steady-streaming and the second harmonic flows in a lubrication approximation. The dependence of the three-dimensional velocity field in the transverse direction is analytically obtained for arbitrary Womersley numbers and possibly overlapping Stokes layers. The horizontal dependence of the flow is solved numerically by computing the first two pressure fields of an asymptotic expansion in the small inertial limit. We study the variations of the flow structure with the amplitude, the channel's wavelength and the Womersley number for various families of three-dimensional channels. The steady-streaming flow field in the horizontal plane exhibits a quadrupolar vortex, the size of which is adjusted to the cavity wavelength. When increasing the wall amplitude, the wavelengths characterizing the channel or the Womersley number, we find higher-order harmonic flow structures, the origin of which can either be inertially driven or geometrically induced. When some of the channel symmetries are broken, a steady-streaming current appears which has a quadratic dependence on the pressure drop, the amplitude of which is linked to the Womersley number.

Trapped modes in the linearized water-wave problem are free oscillations of an unbounded fluid with a free surface that have finite energy. It is known that such modes may be supported by particular fixed structures, and also by certain freely floating structures in which case there is, in general, a coupled motion of the fluid and structure; these two types of mode are referred to respectively as sloshing and motion trapped modes, and the corresponding structures are known as sloshing and motion trapping structures. Here a trapped mode is described that shares characteristics with both sloshing and motion modes. These ‘passive trapped modes’ are such that the net force on the structure exerted by the fluid oscillation is zero and so, in the absence of any forcing, the structure does not move even when it is allowed to float freely. In the paper, methods are given for the construction of passive trapping structures, a mechanism for exciting the modes is outlined using frequency-domain analysis, and the existence of the passive trapped modes is confirmed by numerical time-domain simulations of the excitation process.

Determining the finite-amplitude preconditioned states in the hurricane embryo, which lead to tropical cyclogenesis, is a central issue in contemporary meteorology. In the embryo there is competition between different preconditioning mechanisms involving hydrodynamics and moist thermodynamics, which can lead to cyclogenesis. Here systematic asymptotic methods from applied mathematics are utilized to develop new simplified moist multi-scale models starting from the moist anelastic equations. Three interesting multi-scale models emerge in the analysis. The balanced mesoscale vortex (BMV) dynamics and the microscale balanced hot tower (BHT) dynamics involve simplified balanced equations without gravity waves for vertical vorticity amplification due to moist heat sources and incorporate nonlinear advective fluxes across scales. The BMV model is the central one for tropical cyclogenesis in the embryo. The moist mesoscale wave (MMW) dynamics involves simplified equations for mesoscale moisture fluctuations, as well as linear hydrostatic waves driven by heat sources from moisture and eddy flux divergences. A simplified cloud physics model for deep convection is introduced here and used to study moist axisymmetric plumes in the BHT model. A simple application in periodic geometry involving the effects of mesoscale vertical shear and moist microscale hot towers on vortex amplification is developed here to illustrate features of the coupled multi-scale models. These results illustrate the use of these models in isolating key mechanisms in the embryo in a simplified content.