By generalizing the theory of ‘rapid distortion’ of turbulence developed by Batchelor & Proudman (1954) it is shown in this paper that the turbulent velocity around a bluff body placed in a turbulent flow can be calculated outside and upstream of the regions of separated flow, if the incident turbulent flow satisfies the following conditions: (i) if a/Lx [Lt ] 1 or = O(1), Re−1$u^{\prime}_{\infty}/\overline{u}_{\infty} $ [Lt ] 1 [Lt ] Re½; (ii) if a/Lx [Gt ] 1, Re−1 [Lt ] $u^{\prime}_{\infty}$ [Lt ] 1/(a/Lx) and Re [Gt ] (a/Lx)2, where $Re = \overline{u}_{\infty} a/ν$, is the mean uniform incident velocity, $u^{\prime}_{\infty}$ is the r.m.s. velocity of the homogeneous incident turbulence, a is a transverse dimension of the body (the radius in the case of a circular cylinder), Lx is the integral scale of the incident turbulence and v is the kinematic viscosity.

Detailed calculations are given for the flow around a circular cylinder with particular emphasis on the turbulence very close to the surface. (The results can be generalized to other cylindrical bodies.) Mean-square values and spectra of velocity have been found only in the limiting situations where the turbulence scale is very much larger or smaller than the size of the body, i.e. Lx [Gt ] a or Lx [Lt ] a. But, whatever the value of a/Lx, if the frequency is sufficiently large the results for spectra tend to those of the limiting situation where Lx [Lt ] a. The reason why the turbulence velocities have not been calculated for intermediate values of a/Lx is that closed-form solutions cannot be found and that the computing time then required is quite excessive. However, some computed results are used in the paper to suggest the qualitative behaviour of the turbulence when Lx is of order a. An important result of the theory is that it illuminates and distinguishes between the governing physical processes of distortion of the turbulence by the mean flow, the direct ‘blocking’ of the turbulence by the body, and concentration of vortex lines at the body's surface.

The results of the theory have many applications, for example in calculating turbulent dispersion and fluctuating pressures on the body, as shown elsewhere by Hunt & Mulhearn (1973) and Hunt (1973).

In conclusion the theoretical results are briefly compared with experimental measurements of turbulent flows round non-circular cylinders. A detailed comparison with measurements round circular cylinders will be published later by Petty (1974).

An analytical and experimental investigation of the near and far wake characteristics of a cascade of airfoils is reported in this paper. The measurement of mean velocity, turbulence intensity and Reynolds stress across the wake at several distances downstream of the cascade indicates that the wake is asymmetrical and this asymmetry is maintained even up to 3/4 chord length. Experiments carried out at three incidences reveal that the decay of the wake defect is strongly dependent on the downstream variation of the wake edge velocity. For a cascade, the decay rate of the wake defect is found to be slower than that of a flat plate, cylinder or symmetrical airfoil (at zero incidence). The level of turbulence and Reynolds stresses are found to be high and some comments are made regarding self-preservation and structure of the flow. Semi-theoretical expressions are given for the wake profile, and decay of the velocity defect, turbulence intensity and Reynolds stress.

This is a study of turbulence which results from Kelvin—Helmholtz instability at the interface between two miscible fluids in a two-dimensional shear flow in the laboratory. The growth of two-dimensional ‘billows’, their disruption by turbulence, and the eventual decay of this turbulence and the re-establishment of a gravitationally and kinematically stable interface are described. Continuous measurements of density and horizontal velocity from both fixed and vertically moving probes have been made, and the records obtained are presented, together with photographs showing the simultaneous appearance of the flow, which serve to identify the physical nature of events seen in the records. The measurements show how the fine-structure of the density field described in earlier experiments is related to velocity fluctuations. The vertical length scales of the final mean velocity and density structure are found to be different, and to depend on the Richardson number at which instability first occurred. The eventual Richardson number at the centre of layer is, however, not dependent on the initial Richardson number and has a value of about one third. The implications of these results to the eddy diffusion coefficients, to the energy exchange, and to turbulence in the ocean and the atmosphere are discussed.

The boundary-layer flow over a circular cylinder at a Reynolds number of 1·06 × 105 has been studied both experimentally and theoretically. The investigation was designed to concentrate on the self-induced oscillations occurring in the flow; at this Reynolds number, these oscillations have generally been ignored heretofore. In the experimental part of the investigation both the inviscid flow and boundary-layer flow reversals were measured as functions of time. The theoretical part of the study started with the measured inviscid flow and calculated all the boundary-layer characteristics. The boundary-layer calculations themselves revealed some very interesting fine-scale structure of the flow, which strongly indicated that the vanishing of wall shear does not signal the onset of separation for unsteady flow. In general, the agreement between the theoretical calculations and the experimental results was excellent and the unsteady component of this supposedly steady flow was found to be very significant.

The lift and drag forces were measured on both a single circular cylinder and tandem circular cylinders in uniform flow at Reynolds numbers from 40 to 104, to investigate the stability of an oscillating cylinder. A cylinder (the downstream one in the tandem case) was made to oscillate in either the transverse or longitudinal direction (perpendicular or parallel to the stream). In the case of a single cylinder, its oscillation causes the so-called synchronization in a frequency range around the Strouhal frequency (transverse mode) or double the Strouhal frequency (longitudinal mode). The aerodynamic damping for transverse oscillation becomes negative in the synchronization range. In the case of tandem cylinders, at low Reynolds numbers in the pure Kármán range synchronization was observed to occur only when the downstream cylinder oscillated inside the vortex-formation region of the upstream one, and at high (low subcritical) Reynolds numbers synchronization occurred irrespective of the cylinder spacing in either oscillating mode. In the tandem case, too, the transverse oscillation of the downstream cylinder becomes unstable in the range of synchronization.

An exact analytic solution is derived for the perturbation of a magnetic field while exposed to an immersed, axisymmetric, azimuthal, steady current source of arbitrary distribution in the presence of a slender, electrically conducting, independently permeated, compressible jet threading the axis of symmetry, subject to an equilibrium pressure balance. A further influence is the enclosure of the magnetic field by a coaxial cylindrical wall. The steady-state result invariably exhibits an infinite discrete superposition of axially decaying terms. In addition, there arise two admissible alternatives involving a fluid parameter λ (dependent on the flow speed, sound speed and both Alfvén speeds pertaining to the jet) together with a scale parameter χ(0) (equal to twice the ratio of the cross-sectional area of the jet to that of its externally enveloping field). Provided that λ exceeds χ(0), each element constituting the current distribution induces a stationary-wave contribution confined, as a consequence of an applied radiation condition, to the upstream domain, corresponding to an upstream-directed group velocity. However, if λ is exceeded by χ(0), this upstream wave is replaced by another decaying term, acting on both sides of every current constituent, like all other decaying terms.

An experimental investigation of the flow development of an axisymmetric jet exhausting into a moving air stream is made for two values of the ratio of jet velocity to external air velocity. The u-component turbulence intensity and Reynolds shear stress measurements together with the dissipation length scales inferred from measured u-component spectra suggest that the turbulence similarity assumptions are incorrect for the present flow situation. A discussion of the turbulence structure of the flow indicates that self-preservation does not apply for this situation and that the flow far downstream depends strongly on the complete past history.