Two distinct kinds of transition have been identified in Couette flow between concentric rotating cylinders. The first, which will be called transition by spectral evolution, is characteristic of the motion when the inner cylinder has a larger angular velocity than the outer one. As the speed increases, a succession of secondary modes is excited; the first is the Taylor motion (periodic in the axial direction), and the second is a pattern of travelling waves (periodic in the circumferential direction). Higher modes correspond to harmonics of the two fundamental frequencies of the doubly-periodic flow. This kind of transition may be viewed as a cascade process in which energy is transferred by non-linear interactions through a discrete spectrum to progressively higher frequencies in a two-dimensional wave-number space. At sufficiently large Reynolds numbers the discrete spectrum changes gradually and reversibly to a continuous one by broadening of the initially sharp spectral lines.

These periodic flows are not uniquely determined by the Reynolds number. For the case of the inner cylinder rotating and the outer cylinder at rest, as many as 20 or 25 different states (each state being defined by the number of Taylor cells and the number of tangential waves) have been observed at a given speed. As the speed changes, theso states replace each other in a repeatable but irreversible pattern of transitions; vortices appear or disappear in pairs, and waves are added or subtracted. More than 70 such transitions have been found in the speed range up to about 10 times the first critical speed. Regardless of the state, however, the angular velocity of the tangential waves is nearly constant at 0.34 times the angular velocity of the inner cylinder.

The second kind of transition, which will be called catastrophic transition, is characteristic of the motion when the outer cylinder has a larger angular velocity than the inner one. At a fixed Reynolds number, the fluid is divided into distinct regions of laminar and turbulent flow, and these regions are separated by interfacial surfaces which may be propagating in either direction. Under some conditions the turbulent regions may appear and disappear in a random way; under other conditions they may form quite regular patterns. One common pattern of particular interest is a spiral band of turbulence which rotates at very nearly the mean angular velocity of the two walls without any change in shape except possibly an occasional shift from a right-hand to a left-hand pattern. One example of this spiral turbulence is being studied in some detail in an attempt to clarify the role played in transition by interfaces and intermittency.

The present paper deals with the practical and rigorous solution of the potential problem associated with the harmonic oscillation of a rigid body on a free surface. The body is assumed to have the form of either an elliptical cylinder or an ellipsoid. The use of Green's function reduces the determination of the potential to the solution of an integral equation. The integral equation is solved numerically and the dependency of the hydrodynamic quantities such as added mass, added moment of inertia and damping coefficients of the rigid body on the frequency of the oscillation is established.

This paper presents an investigation into the influence of rotation on the laminar asymptotic velocity and temperature profiles obtained when fluid flows through a vertical tube which rotates about a parallel axis with uniform angular velocity, and which is subjected to a uniform temperature gradient. Rotation induces secondary free convection flow in the plane perpendicular to the axis resulting in non-symmetrical axial-velocity and temperature profiles which modify the solved using a series expansion in ascending powers of the rotational Rayleigh number, the resulting solution being approximate and valid only for low rates of heating.

When the upward flow of a fluid through a bed of particles of appropriate and almost uniform size is rapid enough so that the drag on each particle is as great as the particles buoyant weight, the particles do not remain close packed and the bed is said to be fluidized. Industrial uses of fluidized beds in the chemical and petroleum industries in particular are already extensive. Uses in the atomicenergy industry are being developed.

In this paper a mathematical model which describes the phenomena on a continuum basis is deduced. With this model we find that the system is unstable to small internal disturbances. Alternatively, we find that surface waves can be propagated (with attenuation) in the composite fluid and these waves for fluidized beds with a high ratio of solids density to fluid density are stable. These results are in agreement with experiment. Hot beds, where strongly exothermic reactions may be taking place, centrifugal beds (beds fluidized within a rotating system), and electromagnetic beds (those in which the particulate phase is electrically conducting) are all shown to be unstable to small internal disturbances.

The equations derived here may also be used as approximate equations for dispersed particle two-phase flow.

The Newtonian theory of inviscid hypersonic flow is extended to obtain a solution uniformly valid in the subsonic region, and that is used to determine the position and shape of the sonic line. The main modification to the theory has to be made near the body surface and an expansion, essentially in terms of the stream function, is employed.

For simplicity the solution is limited to the cases of axially- and plane-symmetric flows. As an illustration of the theory the flows past a sphere and a circular cylinder are treated in some detail. Comparison with the numerical results of Garabedian and Lieberstein gives favourable agreement.

It is found that only a small change in either of the undisturbed velocity profiles concerned is required to change them from stable profiles to unstable profiles. The change must be such as to produce a local maximum in the magnitude of the vorticity, or in the case of the pipe, in the magnitude of the vorticity divided by the radius. The actual change in the vorticity (or vorticity/radius) need only be small, but the gradient of the vorticity (or vorticity/radius) must be finite. Viscosity will tend to damp out the distortion in the mean flow that is responsible for the instability, so that if the flow is to become turbulent, non-linear effects must become important before the distortion of the mean flow is reduced to an ineffective level. This requirement leads to the determination of critical Reynolds numbers which depend on the initial (small) distortion of the mean flow and the initial (smaller) amplitude of periodic disturbances. These critical Reynolds numbers are large.

Recently a mathematical model was proposed (Sutera, Maeder & Kestin 1963) to demonstrate that vorticity amplification by stretching was an important mechanism underlying the sensitivity of stagnation-point heat transfer on cylinders to free-stream turbulence. According to the model, vorticity of a scale larger than a certain neutral scale and appropriately oriented can undergo amplification as it is convected towards the boundary layer. Such vorticity, present in the oncoming flow with small intensity, can reach the boundary layer with a greatly magnified intensity and induce substantial three-dimensional effects therein. The mean temperature profile was shown to be much more responsive to these effects than the mean velocity profile and very large increases in the wall-heat-transfer rate were calculated for Prandtl numbers 0·74 and 7·0.

In this work a second, more general, case is treated in which the approaching flow carries vorticity of scale 1·5 times the neutral. By means of iterative procedures applied on an electronic analogue computer, an approximate solution to the full Navier–Stokes equation is generated. The heat-transfer problem is solved simultaneously for Pr = 0·70, 7·0 and 100. It is found that a vorticity input which increases the wall-shear rate by less than 3% is capable of increasing the wall-heat-transfer rate by as much as 40%. The sensitivity of the thermal boundary layer depends on Prandtl number. In the three cases investigated it is greatest for Pr = 7·0 and least for Pr = 100.

An analysis is made of the two-dimensional flow under gravity of an inviscid non-diffusive stratified fluid into a line sink, involving a velocity discontinuity in the flow field. The fluid above the discontinuity is stagnant and hence is not drawn into the sink. At sufficiently low values of the modified Froude number, this is the only physically possible mode of flow, and is the cause of flow separation in many industrial and natural processes. A proper mathematical solution for flows with a stagnant zone has so far been lacking. This paper presents such a solution, after posing the problem as one involving a free-streamline, which is the line of velocity discontinuity. The solution to be given here is obtained by an inverse method. It is also found herein that the modified Froude number has a value of 0·345 for all separated flows of the kind in question.

A systematic account is given of the derivation of the dispersion relation for helicon waves in a uniform cylindrical plasma bounded by a vacuum. By retaining finite resistivity in the equations, boundary conditions present no difficulties, since the wave magnetic field is continuous through the plasma-vacuum interface. Two unexpected results are found. First, the wave attenuation remains finite in the limit of vanishing resistivity. This is due to the energy dissipated at the interface by the surface currents required to match the plasma wave field to the vacuum wave field. Zero wave attenuation for zero resistivity is recovered if electron inertia is included. Secondly, it is found that waves with azimuthal numbers m of opposite sign propagate differently, but the sense of polarization at the axis of the cylinder is independent of the sign of m.

The argument of the dispersion function is complex and numerical results were obtained using a computer. The method of programming is described, and results are given applicable to propagation in metals at low temperatures, or in a typical gas discharge plasma for the m = 0 and m = ± 1 modes.

An example of the amplitude of the wave fields as a function of radius is given for the axisymmetric mode, and of amplitude and phase for the m = ± 1 modes.

The problem of the stability and growth of disturbances in a fluid with time-dependent heating is investigated. The analysis is restricted to the case when the temperature gradient is large in a layer which is narrow by comparison with the overall depth of the fluid. An approximate method of solution is presented. Results of computations are also presented which illustrate the method of solution and the essential features of the problem.