We investigate the hydrodynamic stability of compressible boundary layers over adiabatic walls with fluids at supercritical pressure in the proximity of the Widom line (also known as the pseudo-critical line). Depending on the free-stream temperature and the Eckert number that determines the viscous heating, the boundary-layer temperature profile can be either sub-, trans- or supercritical with respect to the pseudo-critical temperature, $T_{pc}$. When transitioning from sub- to supercritical temperatures, a seemingly continuous phase change from a compressible liquid to a dense vapour occurs, accompanied by highly non-ideal changes in thermophysical properties. Using linear stability theory (LST) and direct numerical simulations (DNS), several key features are observed. In the sub- and supercritical temperature regimes, the boundary layer is substantially stabilized the closer the free-stream temperature is to $T_{pc}$ and the higher the Eckert number. In the transcritical case, when the temperature profile crosses $T_{pc}$, the flow is significantly destabilized and a co-existence of dual unstable modes (Mode II in addition to Mode I) is found. For high Eckert numbers, the growth rate of Mode II is one order of magnitude larger than Mode I. An inviscid analysis shows that the newly observed Mode II cannot be attributed to Mack’s second mode (trapped acoustic waves), which is characteristic in high-speed boundary-layer flows with ideal gases. Furthermore, the generalized Rayleigh criterion (also applicable for non-ideal gases) unveils that, in contrast to the trans- and supercritical regimes, the subcritical regime does not contain an inviscid instability mechanism.

The fundamental mechanisms of a hitherto unstudied approach to control the crossflow-induced transition in a three-dimensional boundary layer employing unsteady control vortices are investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. Using a spanwise row of blowing/suction or volume-force actuators, subcritical travelling crossflow vortex modes are excited to impose a stabilizing (upstream) flow deformation (UFD). Volume forcing mimics the effects of alternating current plasma actuators driven by a low-frequency sinusoidal signal. In this case the axes of the actuators are aligned with the wave crests of the desired travelling mode to maximize receptivity and abate the influence of other unwanted, misaligned modes. The resulting travelling crossflow vortices generate a beneficial mean-flow distortion reducing the amplification rate of naturally occurring steady or unsteady crossflow modes without invoking significant secondary instabilities. It is found that the stabilizing effect achieved by travelling control modes is somewhat weaker than that achieved by the steady modes in the classical UFD method. However, the energy requirements for unsteady-UFD plasma actuators would be significantly lower than for steady UFD because the approach makes full use of the inherent unsteadiness of the plasma-induced volume force with alternating-current-driven actuators. Also, the input control amplitude can be lower since unsteady crossflow vortex modes grow stronger in the flow.

We investigate the growth of gas bubbles in a water solution at rest with a supersaturation level that is generally associated with diffusive mass transfer. For $\text{CO}_{2}$ bubbles, it has been previously observed that, after some time of growing in a diffusive regime, a density-driven convective flow enhances the mass transfer rate into the bubble. This is due to the lower density of the gas-depleted liquid which surrounds the bubble. In this work, we report on experiments with different supersaturation values, measuring the time $t_{conv}$ it takes for convection to dominate over the diffusion-driven growth. We demonstrate that by considering buoyancy and drag forces on the depleted liquid around the bubble, we can satisfactorily predict the transition time. In fact, our analysis shows that this onset does not only depend on the supersaturation, but also on the absolute pressure, which we corroborate in experiments. Subsequently, we study how the depletion caused by the growth of successive single bubbles influences the onset of convection. Finally, we study the convection onset around diffusively growing nitrogen $\text{N}_{2}$ bubbles. As $\text{N}_{2}$ is much less soluble in water, the growth takes much longer. However, after waiting long enough and consistent with our theory, convection still occurs as for any gas–liquid combination, provided that the density of the solution sufficiently changes with the gas concentration.

The interaction of disturbance modes behind an isolated cylindrical roughness element in a laminar boundary layer is investigated by means of hot-film anemometry and particle image velocimetry in a low-turbulence laminar water channel. Both sinuous and varicose disturbance modes are found in the wake of a roughness with unit aspect ratio (diameter/height $=$ 1). Interestingly, the frequency of the varicose mode synchronizes with the first harmonic of the sinuous mode when the critical Reynolds number from three-dimensional global linear stability theory is exceeded. The coupled motion of sinuous and varicose modes is explained by frequency lock-in. This mechanism is of great importance in many aspects of nature, but has not yet received sufficient attention in the field of boundary-layer theory. A Fourier mode decomposition provides detailed analyses of sinuous and varicose modes. The observation is confirmed by a second experiment with the same aspect ratio at a different position in the laminar boundary layer. When the aspect ratio is increased, the flow is fully governed by the varicose mode. Thus, no frequency lock-in can be observed in this case. The significance of this work is to explain how sinuous and varicose modes can co-exist behind a roughness and to propose a mechanism which is well established in physics but not encountered often in boundary-layer theory.

Multicomponent liquid drops in a host liquid are very relevant in various technological applications. Their dissolution or growth dynamics is complex. Differences in solubility between the drop components combined with the solutal Marangoni effect and natural convection contribute to this complexity, which can be even further increased in combination with the ouzo effect, i.e. the spontaneous nucleation of microdroplets due to composition-dependent miscibilities in a ternary system. The quantitative understanding of this combined process is important for applications in industry, particularly for modern liquid–liquid microextraction processes. In this work, as a model system, we experimentally and theoretically explore water–ethanol drops dissolving in anethole oil. During the dissolution, we observed two types of microdroplet nucleation, namely water microdroplet nucleation in the surrounding oil at drop mid-height, and oil microdroplet nucleation in the aqueous drop, again at mid-height. The nucleated oil microdroplets are driven by Marangoni flows inside the aqueous drop and evolve into microdroplet rings. A one-dimensional multiphase and multicomponent diffusion model in combination with thermodynamic equilibrium theory is proposed to predict the behaviour of spontaneous emulsification, i.e. microdroplet nucleation, that is triggered by diffusion. A scale analysis together with experimental investigations of the fluid dynamics of the system reveals that both the solutal Marangoni flow inside the drop and the buoyancy-driven flow in the host liquid influence the diffusion-triggered emulsification process. Our work provides a physical understanding of the microdroplet nucleation by dissolution of a multicomponent drop in a host liquid.

We present numerical and theoretical results concerning the properties of turbulent flows with strong multi-scale helical injection. We perform direct numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations under a random helical stirring with power-law spectrum and with different intensities of energy and helicity injections. We show that there exists three different regimes where the forward energy and helicity inertial transfers are: (i) both leading with respect to the external injections, (ii) energy transfer is leading and helicity transfer is sub-leading and (iii) both are sub-leading and helicity is maximal at all scales. As a result, the cases (ii)–(iii) give flows with Kolmogorov-like inertial energy cascade and tuneable helicity transfers/contents. We further explore regime (iii) by studying its effect on the kinetics of point-like isotropic helicoids, particles whose dynamics is isotropic but breaks parity invariance. We investigate small-scale fractal clustering and preferential sampling of intense helical flow structures. Depending on their structural parameters, the isotropic helicoids either preferentially sample co-chiral or anti-chiral flow structures. We explain these findings in limiting cases in terms of what is known for spherical particles of different densities and degrees of inertia. Furthermore, we present theoretical and numerical results for a stochastic model where dynamical properties can be calculated using analytical perturbation theory. Our study shows that a suitable tuning of the stirring mechanism can strongly modify the small-scale turbulent helical properties and demonstrates that isotropic helicoids are the simplest particles able to preferentially sense helical properties in turbulence.

When a layer of static grains on a sufficiently steep slope is disturbed, an upslope-propagating erosion wave, or retrogressive failure, may form that separates the initially static material from a downslope region of flowing grains. This paper shows that a relatively simple depth-averaged avalanche model with frictional hysteresis is sufficient to capture a planar retrogressive failure that is independent of the cross-slope coordinate. The hysteresis is modelled with a non-monotonic effective basal friction law that has static, intermediate (velocity decreasing) and dynamic (velocity increasing) regimes. Both experiments and time-dependent numerical simulations show that steadily travelling retrogressive waves rapidly form in this system and a travelling wave ansatz is therefore used to derive a one-dimensional depth-averaged exact solution. The speed of the wave is determined by a critical point in the ordinary differential equation for the thickness. The critical point lies in the intermediate frictional regime, at the point where the friction exactly balances the downslope component of gravity. The retrogressive wave is therefore a sensitive test of the functional form of the friction law in this regime, where steady uniform flows are unstable and so cannot be used to determine the friction law directly. Upper and lower bounds for the existence of retrogressive waves in terms of the initial layer depth and the slope inclination are found and shown to be in good agreement with the experimentally determined phase diagram. For the friction law proposed by Edwards et al. (J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 823, 2017, pp. 278–315, J. Fluid. Mech., 2019, (submitted)) the magnitude of the wave speed is slightly under-predicted, but, for a given initial layer thickness, the exact solution accurately predicts an increase in the wave speed with higher inclinations. The model also captures the finite wave speed at the onset of retrogressive failure observed in experiments.

The effect of permeability heterogeneities and viscosity variations on miscible displacement processes in porous media is examined using high-resolution numerical simulations and reduced theoretical modelling. The planar injection of one fluid into a fluid-saturated, two-dimensional porous medium with a permeability that varies perpendicular to the flow direction is studied. Three cases are considered, in which the injected fluid is equally viscous, more viscous or less viscous than the ambient fluid. In general it is found that the flow in each case evolves through three regimes. At early times, the flow exhibits the concentration evolves diffusively, independent of both the permeability structure and the viscosity ratio. At intermediate times, the flow exhibits different dynamics including channelling and fingering, depending on whether the injected fluid is more or less viscous than the ambient fluid, and depending on the relative magnitude of the viscosity and permeability variations. Finally, at late times, the flow becomes independent of the viscosity ratio and dominated by shear-enhanced (Taylor) dispersion. For each of the regimes identified above, we develop reduced-order models for the evolution of the transversely averaged concentration and compare them to the full numerical simulations.

Turbulence and mixing in a near-bottom convectively driven flow are examined by numerical simulations of a model problem: a statically unstable disturbance at a slope with inclination $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ in a stable background with buoyancy frequency $N$. The influence of slope angle and initial disturbance amplitude are quantified in a parametric study. The flow evolution involves energy exchange between four energy reservoirs, namely the mean and turbulent components of kinetic energy (KE) and available potential energy (APE). In contrast to the zero-slope case where the mean flow is negligible, the presence of a slope leads to a current that oscillates with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=N\sin \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ and qualitatively changes the subsequent evolution of the initial density disturbance. The frequency, $N\sin \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$, and the initial speed of the current are predicted using linear theory. The energy transfer in the sloping cases is dominated by an oscillatory exchange between mean APE and mean KE with a transfer to turbulence at specific phases. In all simulated cases, the positive buoyancy flux during episodes of convective instability at the zero-velocity phase is the dominant contributor to turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) although the shear production becomes increasingly important with increasing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$. Energy that initially resides wholly in mean available potential energy is lost through conversion to turbulence and the subsequent dissipation of TKE and turbulent available potential energy. A key result is that, in contrast to the explosive loss of energy during the initial convective instability in the non-sloping case, the sloping cases exhibit a more gradual energy loss that is sustained over a long time interval. The slope-parallel oscillation introduces a new flow time scale $T=2\unicode[STIX]{x03C0}/(N\sin \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD})$ and, consequently, the fraction of initial APE that is converted to turbulence during convective instability progressively decreases with increasing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$. For moderate slopes with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}<10^{\circ }$, most of the net energy loss takes place during an initial, short ($Nt\approx 20$) interval with periodic convective overturns. For steeper slopes, most of the energy loss takes place during a later, long ($Nt>100$) interval when both shear and convective instability occur, and the energy loss rate is approximately constant. The mixing efficiency during the initial period dominated by convectively driven turbulence is found to be substantially higher (exceeds 0.5) than the widely used value of 0.2. The mixing efficiency at long time in the present problem of a convective overturn at a boundary varies between 0.24 and 0.3.

In turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard (RB) convection with regular, mono-scale, surface roughness, the scaling exponent $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ in the relationship between the Nusselt number $Nu$ and the Rayleigh number $Ra$, $Nu\sim Ra^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}}$ can be ${\approx}1/2$ locally, provided that $Ra$ is large enough to ensure that the thermal boundary layer thickness $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}}$ is comparable to the roughness height. However, at even larger $Ra$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}}$ becomes thin enough to follow the irregular surface and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ saturates back to the value for smooth walls (Zhu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 119, 2017, 154501). In this paper, we prevent this saturation by employing multiscale roughness. We perform direct numerical simulations of two-dimensional RB convection using an immersed boundary method to capture the rough plates. We find that, for rough boundaries that contain three distinct length scales, a scaling exponent of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}=0.49\pm 0.02$ can be sustained for at least three decades of $Ra$. The physical reason is that the threshold $Ra$ at which the scaling exponent $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ saturates back to the smooth wall value is pushed to larger $Ra$, when the smaller roughness elements fully protrude through the thermal boundary layer. The multiscale roughness employed here may better resemble the irregular surfaces that are encountered in geophysical flows and in some industrial applications.

Results of comprehensive particle image velocimetry measurements investigating the dynamics of turbulent jets in a rotating fluid are presented. It is observed that background system rotation induces a time-periodic formation–breakdown cycle of the jets. The flow dynamics associated with this process is studied in detail. It is found that the frequency of the cycle increases linearly with the background rotation rate. The data show that the onset of the breakdown phase and of the reformation phase of the cycle can be characterized in terms of a local Rossby number employing an internal velocity and a length scale of the jet. The critical values for this local Rossby number, for onset of breakdown and reformation, scale linearly with a global Rossby number based on the flow conditions at the source. The analysis of the experimental data suggests centrifugal instability as the potential origin of the formation–breakdown cycle.

A two-dimensional model describing river morphodynamic processes under mixed-size sediment conditions is analysed with respect to its well posedness. Well posedness guarantees the existence of a unique solution continuously depending on the problem data. When a model becomes ill posed, infinitesimal perturbations to a solution grow infinitely fast. Apart from the fact that this behaviour cannot represent a physical process, numerical simulations of an ill-posed model continue to change as the grid is refined. For this reason, ill-posed models cannot be used as predictive tools. One source of ill posedness is due to the simplified description of the processes related to vertical mixing of sediment. The current analysis reveals the existence of two additional mechanisms that lead to model ill posedness: secondary flow due to the flow curvature and the effect of gravity on the sediment transport direction. When parametrising secondary flow, accounting for diffusion in the transport of secondary flow intensity is a requirement for obtaining a well-posed model. When considering the theoretical amount of diffusion, the model predicts instability of perturbations that are incompatible with the shallow water assumption. The effect of gravity on the sediment transport direction is a necessary mechanism to yield a well-posed model, but not all closure relations to account for this mechanism are valid under mixed-size sediment conditions. Numerical simulations of idealised situations confirm the results of the stability analysis and highlight the consequences of ill posedness.

We present the linear theory of two-dimensional incompressible magneto-Rayleigh–Taylor instability in a system composed of a linear elastic (Hookean) layer above a lighter semi-infinite ideal fluid with magnetic fields present, above and below the layer. As expected, magnetic field effects and elasticity effects together enhance the stability of thick layers. However, the situation becomes more complicated for relatively thin slabs, and a number of new and unexpected phenomena are observed. In particular, when the magnetic field beneath the layer dominates, its effects compete with effects due to elasticity, and counteract the stabilising effects of the elasticity. As a consequence, the layer can become more unstable than when only one of these stabilising mechanisms is acting. This somewhat unexpected result is explained by the different physical mechanisms for which elasticity and magnetic fields stabilise the system. Implications for experiments on magnetically driven accelerated plates and implosions are discussed. Moreover, the relevance for triggering of crust-quakes in strongly magnetised neutron stars is also pointed out.

We present a conditional space–time proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) formulation that is tailored to the eduction of the average, rare or intermittent events from an ensemble of realizations of a fluid process. By construction, the resulting spatio-temporal modes are coherent in space and over a predefined finite time horizon, and optimally capture the variance, or energy of the ensemble. For the example of intermittent acoustic radiation from a turbulent jet, we introduce a conditional expectation operator that focuses on the loudest events, as measured by a pressure probe in the far field and contained in the tail of the pressure signal’s probability distribution. Applied to high-fidelity simulation data, the method identifies a statistically significant ‘prototype’, or average acoustic burst event that is tracked over time. Most notably, the burst event can be traced back to its precursor, which opens up the possibility of prediction of an imminent burst. We furthermore investigate the mechanism underlying the prototypical burst event using linear stability theory and find that its structure and evolution are accurately predicted by optimal transient growth theory. The jet-noise problem demonstrates that the conditional space–time POD formulation applies even for systems with probability distributions that are not heavy-tailed, i.e. for systems in which events overlap and occur in rapid succession.

The bi-modal behaviour of the turbulent flow past three-dimensional blunt bluff bodies is simulated using wall-resolved large eddy simulations. Bi-modality (also called bi-stability) is a phenomenon that occurs in the wakes of three-dimensional bluff bodies. It manifests as a random displacement of the wake between preferred off-centre locations. Two bluff bodies are considered in this work: a conventional square-back Ahmed body representative of road cars, and a simplified lorry, which is taller than it is wide, with its aspect ratio corresponding to a 15 % European lorry scale model. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the asymmetric bi-modal switching behaviour of the wake, observed experimentally, has been captured in simulations. The resulting unsteady flow fields are then analysed, revealing instantaneous topological changes in the wake experiencing bi-modal switching. The best-resolved case, the simplified lorry geometry, is then studied in greater detail using modal decomposition to gain insights into the energy content and the dominant frequencies of the wake flow structures associated with the asymmetric states. High-frequency snapshots of the switching sequence allow us to propose that large hairpin vortices are responsible for the triggering of the switching.

Compliant walls offer the tantalising possibility of passive flow control. This paper examines the mechanics of compliant surfaces driven by wall shear stresses, with solely in-plane velocity response. We present direct numerical simulations of turbulent channel flows at low ($Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\approx 180$) and intermediate ($Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\approx 1000$) Reynolds numbers. In-plane spanwise and streamwise active controls proposed by Choi et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 262, 1994, pp. 75–110) are revisited in order to characterise beneficial wall fluctuations. An analytical framework is then used to map the parameter space of the proposed compliant surfaces. The direct numerical simulations show that large-scale passive streamwise wall fluctuations can reduce friction drag by at least $3.7\pm 1\,\%$, whereas even small-scale passive spanwise wall motions lead to considerable drag penalty. It is found that a well-designed compliant wall can theoretically exploit the drag-reduction mechanism of an active control; this may help advance the development of practical active and passive control strategies for turbulent friction drag reduction.

We present results on the drag on, and the flow field around, a submerged rectangular normal flat plate, which is uniformly accelerated to a constant target velocity along a straight path. The plate aspect ratio is chosen to be $AR=2$ to resemble an oar blade in (competitive) rowing, the sport which inspired this study. The plate depth, i.e. the distance from the top of the plate to the air–water interface, the plate acceleration and the plate target velocity are varied, resulting in a plate width based Reynolds number of $4\times 10^{4}\lesssim Re\lesssim 8\times 10^{4}$. In our analysis we distinguish three phases; (i) the acceleration phase during which the plate drag is enhanced, (ii) the transition phase during which the plate drag decreases to a constant steady value upon which (iii) the steady phase is reached. The plate drag force is measured as function of time which showed that the steady-phase plate drag at a depth of $1/5$ plate height (20 mm depth for a plate height of 100 mm) increased by 45 % compared to the plate top at the surface (0 mm). Also, it is shown that the drag force during acceleration of the plate increases over time and is not captured by a single added mass coefficient for prolonged accelerations. Instead, an entrainment rate is defined that captures this behaviour. The formation of starting vortices and the wake development during the time of acceleration and transition towards a steady wake are studied using hydrogen bubble flow visualisations and particle image velocimetry. The formation time, as proposed by Gharib et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 360, 1998, pp. 121–140), appears to be a universal time scale for the vortex formation during the transition phase.

Linear perturbation analyses of zero-pressure-gradient boundary layers at subcritical Reynolds numbers predict that transient disturbance amplification can take place due to the lift-up mechanism. Upstream, streamwise-elongated vortices yield the largest response per unit of inflow disturbance energy, which takes the form of streamwise-elongated streaks. In this work, we compute the linear and also nonlinear inflow disturbances that generate the largest response inside the boundary layer, for flow over a thin flat plate with a slender leading edge. In order to compare our results with earlier linear analyses, we constrain the inlet disturbance to be monochromatic in time, or a single frequency. The boundary layer effectively filters high frequencies, and only low-frequency perturbations induce a strong response downstream. The low-frequency optimal inflow disturbance has a spanwise wavenumber that scales with $\sqrt{Re}$, and it consists of streamwise and normal vorticity components: the latter is tilted around the leading edge into the streamwise direction and, further downstream, generates streaks. While none of the computed monochromatic disturbances alone can lead to breakdown to turbulence, secondary instability analyses demonstrate that the streaky base state is unstable. Nonlinear simulations where the inflow disturbance is supplemented with additional white noise undergo secondary instability and breakdown to turbulence.

Rapid shallow granular flows over inclined planes are often seen in nature in the form of avalanches, landslides and pyroclastic flows. In these situations the flow develops an inversely graded (large at the top) particle-size distribution perpendicular to the plane. As the surface velocity of such flows is larger than the mean velocity, the larger material is transported to the flow front. This causes size segregation in the downstream direction, resulting in a flow front composed of large particles. Since the large particles are often more frictional than the small, the mobility of the flow front is reduced, resulting in a so-called bulbous head. This study focuses on the formation and evolution of this bulbous head, which we show to emerge in both a depth-averaged continuum framework and discrete particle simulations. Furthermore, our numerical solutions of the continuum model converge to a travelling wave solution, which allows for a very efficient computation of the long-time behaviour of the flow. We use small-scale periodic discrete particle simulations to calibrate (close) our continuum framework, and validate the simple one-dimensional (1-D) model with full-scale 3-D discrete particle simulations. The comparison shows that there are conditions under which the model works surprisingly well given the strong approximations made; for example, instantaneous vertical segregation.

The average patterns of the velocity and scalar fields near turbulent/non-turbulent interfaces (TNTI), obtained from direct numerical simulations (DNS) of planar turbulent jets and shear free turbulence, are assessed in the strain eigenframe. These flow patterns help to clarify many aspects of the flow dynamics, including a passive scalar, near a TNTI layer, that are otherwise not easily and clearly assessed. The averaged flow field near the TNTI layer exhibits a saddle-node flow topology associated with a vortex in one half of the interface, while the other half of the interface consists of a shear layer. This observed flow pattern is thus very different from the shear-layer structure consisting of two aligned vortical motions bounded by two large-scale regions of uniform flow, that typically characterizes the average strain field in the fully developed turbulent regions. Moreover, strain dominates over vorticity near the TNTI layer, in contrast to internal turbulence. Consequently, the most compressive principal straining direction is perpendicular to the TNTI layer, and the characteristic 45-degree angle displayed in internal shear layers is not observed at the TNTI layer. The particular flow pattern observed near the TNTI layer has important consequences for the dynamics of a passive scalar field, and explains why regions of particularly high scalar gradient (magnitude) are typically found at TNTIs separating fluid with different levels of scalar concentration. Finally, it is demonstrated that, within the fully developed internal turbulent region, the scalar gradient exhibits an angle with the most compressive straining direction with a peak probability at around 20$^{\text{o}}$. The scalar gradient and the most compressive strain are not preferentially aligned, as has been considered for many years. The misconception originated from an ambiguous definition of the positive directions of the strain eigenvectors.