Lamb waves are trapped acoustic-gravity waves that propagate energy over great distances along a solid boundary in density stratified, compressible fluids. They constitute useful indicators of explosions in planetary atmospheres. When the density stratification exceeds a threshold, or when the impermeability condition at the boundary is relaxed, atmospheric Lamb waves suddenly disappear. Here we use topological arguments to predict the possible existence of new trapped Lamb-like waves in the absence of a solid boundary, depending on the stratification profile. The topological origin of the Lamb-like waves is emphasized by relating their existence to two-band crossing points carrying opposite Chern numbers. The existence of these band crossings coincides with a restoration of the vertical mirror symmetry that is in general broken by gravity. From this perspective, Lamb-like waves also bear strong similarities with boundary modes encountered in quantum valley Hall effect. Our study shows that the presence of Lamb-like waves encode essential information on the underlying stratification profile in astrophysical and geophysical flows, which is often poorly constrained by observations.
Using topology, we unveil the existence of new unidirectional modes in compressible rotating stratified fluids. We relate their emergence to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry by rotation and vertical mirror symmetry by stratification and gravity. We stress the role of the Coriolis force's nontraditional part, induced by a rotation field tangent to the surface. In contrast with horizontally trapped equatorial waves induced by the traditional component of Coriolis force perpendicular to the surface, we find vertically trapped modes that are trapped along interfaces between regions with dist…
The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations currently represent the primary model for describing stratified turbulent fluid flows at low Mach number. The validity of the incompressible assumption, however, has so far only been rigorously established for adiabatic motions. Here, we show from first principl es that the use of available energetics and thermodynamics considerations applied to a turbulent mixing event associated with stratified shear flow instability r efutes the widespread idea that the incompressible assumption is also valid when diabatic irreversible effects are important. The ma…
This is an entry for the Gallery of Fluid Motion of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS-DFD (fluid dynamics videos). This video shows the three-dimensional time-dependent incremental spin-up of a thermally stratified fluid in a cylinder and in an annulus. The rigid bottom/side wall(s) are non-slip, and the upper surface is stress-free. All the surfaces are thermally insulated. The working fluid is water characterized by the kinematic viscosity $ν$ and thermal diffusivity $κ$. Initially, the fluid temperature varies linearly with height and is characterized by a constant buoyancy frequency $N$, …
The Holton-Lindzen-Plumb model describes the spontaneous emergence of mean flow reversals in stratified fluids. It has played a central role in understanding the quasi-biennial oscillation of equatorial winds in Earth's stratosphere and has arguably become a linchpin of wave-mean flow interaction theory in geophysical and astrophysical fluid dynamics. The derivation of the model's equation from primitive equations follows from several assumptions, including quasi-linear approximations, WKB expansion of the wavefield, simplifications of boundary layer terms, among others. Starting from the two-…
An experimental study is reported of the near-critical reflection of internal gravity waves over sloping topography in a stratified fluid. An overturning instability close to the slope and triggering the boundary-mixing process is observed and characterized. These observations are found in good agreement with a recent nonlinear theory.
We present fluid dynamics videos of the motion of a boat on a two-layer or three-layer fluid. Under certain specific conditions, this setup generates large amplitude interfacial waves, while no surface waves are visible. The boat is slowed down leading to a peristaltic effect and sometimes even stopped: this is the so-called dead water phenomenon.
Predicting how much mixing occurs when a given amount of energy is injected into a Boussinesq fluid is a longstanding problem in stratified turbulence. The huge number of degrees of freedom involved in those processes renders extremely difficult a deterministic approach to the problem. Here we present a statistical mechanics approach yielding prediction for a cumulative, global mixing efficiency as a function of a global Richardson number and the background buoyancy profile.
Planetary rotation organizes fluid motions into coherent, long-lived swirls, known as large-scale vortices (LSVs), which play an important role in the dynamics and long-term evolution of geophysical and astrophysical fluids. Here, using direct numerical simulations, we show that LSVs in rapidly rotating mixed convective and stably stratified fluids, which approximates the two-layer, turbulent-stratified dynamics of many geophysical and astrophysical fluids, have a generic shape and that their size can be predicted. We show that LSVs emerge in the convection zone from upscale energy transfers a…
It is necessary to introduce an external forcing to induce turbulence in a stably stratified fluid. The Heisenberg eddy viscosity technique should in this case suffice to calculate a space-time averaged quantity like the global anisotropy parameter as a function of the Richardson number. We find analytically that the anisotropy increases linearly with the Richardson number, with a small quadratic correction. A numerical simulation of the complete equations shows the linear behaviour.
Non-intrusive quantitative fluid density measurements methods are essential in stratified flow experiments. Digital imaging leads to synthetic Schlieren methods in which the variations of the index of refraction are reconstructed computationally. In this study, an important extension to one of these methods, called Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS), is proposed. The extension enables an accurate reconstruction of the density field in stratified liquid experiments. Typically, the experiments are performed by the light source, background pattern, and the camera positioned on the opposite sides…
We study the inviscid damping of Couette flow with an exponentially stratified density. The optimal decay rates of the velocity field and the density are obtained for general perturbations with minimal regularity. For Boussinesq approximation model, the decay rates we get are consistent with the previous results in the literature. We also study the decay rates for the full Euler equations of stratified fluids, which were not studied before. For both models, the decay rates depend on the Richardson number in a very similar way. Besides, we also study the dispersive decay due to the exponential …
In this fluid dynamics video we study the dynamics of miscible vortex rings falling in ambient strongly (near two-layer) stratified fluid. Experiments and direct numerical simulations using the variable density Navier-Stokes (VARDEN) solver are presented and compared. Critical phenomena are identified depending upon the key parameters of the experiment (fluid and ring densities, upper layer vortex travel distance, etc) in which the descending dense vortex ring may experience complete trapping, partial trapping, or fissioning into a cascade of smaller vortices. The interaction of the vortex rin…
New mathematical and numerical results are given for the coupling of the temperature equation of a fluid with Radiative Transfer: existence and uniqueness and a convergent monotone numerical scheme. The technique is shown to be feasible for studying the temperature of lake Leman heated by the sun and for the earth atmosphere to study the effects of greenhouse gases.
In this paper, we study a new type of large-scale instability in obliquely rotating stratified fluids with small scale non-helical turbulence. The small-scale turbulence is generated by the external force with zero helicity and low Reynolds number. The theory uses the method of multiscale asymptotic developments. The nonlinear equations for large scale motions are obtained in the third order of the perturbation theory. In this paper, we consider the linear instability and the stationary nonlinear modes. We obtain solutions in the form of nonlinear Beltrami waves and localized vortex structures…
Internal gravity waves contribute to fluid mixing and energy transport, not only in oceans but also in the atmosphere and in astrophysical bodies. We provide here the first experimental measurement of the growth rate of a resonant triad instability (also called parametric subharmonic instability) transferring energy to smaller scales where it is dissipated. We make careful and quantitative comparisons with theoretical predictions for propagating vertical modes in laboratory experiments.
Wave disturbances of a stratified gas are studied. The description is built on a basis of the Bhatnagar -- Gross -- Krook (BGK) kinetic equation which is reduced down the level of fluid mechanics. The double momenta set is introduced inside a scheme of iterations of the equations operators, dividing the velocity space along and opposite gravity field direction. At both half-spaces the local equilibrium is supposed. As the result, the momenta system is derived. It reproduce Navier-Stokes and Barnett equations at the first and second order in high collision frequencies. The homogeneous backgroun…
In this paper, we find a new large scale instability displayed by a stratified rotating flow in forced turbu- lence. The turbulence is generated by a small scale external force at low Reynolds number. The theory is built on the rigorous asymptotic method of multi-scale development. There is no other special constraint concerning the force. In previous papers, the force was either helical or violating parity invariance. The nonlinear equations for the instability are obtained at the third order of the perturbation theory. In this article, we explain a detailed study of the linear stage of the i…
We present results from numerical simulations of Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence, performed using a recently proposed lattice Boltzmann method able to describe consistently a thermal compressible flow subject to an external forcing. The method allowed us to study the system both in the nearly-Boussinesq and strongly compressible regimes. Moreover, we show that when the stratification is important, the presence of the adiabatic gradient causes the arrest of the mixing process.
The far field asymptotic of internal waves is constructed for the case when a point source of mass moves in a layer of arbitrarily stratified fluid with slowly varying bottom. The solutions obtained describe the far field both near the wave fronts of each individual mode and away from the wave fronts and are expansions in Airy or Fresnel waves with the argument determined from the solution of the corresponding eikonal equation. The amplitude of the wave field is determined from the energy conservation law along the ray tube. For model distributions of the bottom shape and the stratification de…
Numerical simulations of a thin layer of turbulent flow in stably stratified conditions within the Boussinesq approximation have been performed. The statistics of energy transfer among scales have been investigated for different values of control parameters: thickness of the layer and density stratification. It is shown that in a thin layer with a quasi-two-dimensional phenomenology, stratification provides a new channel for the energy transfer towards small scales and reduces the inverse cascade. The role of vortex stretching and enstrophy flux in the transfer of kinetic energy into potential…
This paper describes some preliminary numerical studies using large eddy simulation of full-scale submarine wakes. Submarine wakes are a combination of the wake generated by a smooth slender body and a number of superimposed vortex pairs generated by various control surfaces and other body appendages. For this preliminary study, we attempt to gain some insight into the behavior of full-scale submarine wakes by computing separately the evolution the self-propelled wake of a slender body and the motion of a single vortex pair in both a non-stratified and a stratified environment. An important as…
Wakes of towed and self-propelled bodies in stratified fluids are significantly different from non-stratified wakes. Long time effects of stratification on the development of the wakes of bluff bodies moving at constant speed are well known. In this experimental study we demonstrate how buoyancy affects the initial growth of vortices developing in the wake of a hydrofoil accelerating from rest. Particle image velocimetry measurements were applied to characterize the wake evolution behind a NACA 0015 hydrofoil accelerating in water and for low Reynolds number and relatively strong and stably st…
The free motion of balls is investigated experimentally in continously stratified fluid in a finite container. The oscillation frequency is found to be very close to the local Brunt-Vaisala frequency. The effect of added mass proves to be practically negligible. The evolution of rear jets is demonstrated, and a kind of long term levitation is found. We show that the classical viscous drag would lead to a much stronger damping than observed in the experiment. This is interpreted as a consequence of the feedback from the previously excited internal waves following their reflection from the bound…
We extend the local theory of available potential energy (APE) to a general multicomponent compressible stratified fluid, accounting for the effects of diabatic sinks and sources. As for simple compressible fluids, the total potential energy density of a fluid parcel is the sum of its available elastic energy (AEE) and APE density. These respectively represent the adiabatic compression/expansion work needed to bring it from its reference pressure to its actual pressure and the work against buoyancy forces required to move it from its reference state position to its actual position. Our express…
Exact solutions for laminar stratified flows of Newtonian/non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluids in horizontal and inclined channels are presented. An iterative algorithm is proposed to compute the laminar solution for the general case of a Carreau non-Newtonian fluid. The exact solution is used to study the effect of the rheology of the shear-thinning liquid on two-phase flow characteristics considering both gas/liquid and liquid/liquid systems. Concurrent and counter-current inclined systems are investigated, including the mapping of multiple solution boundaries. Aspects relevant to practical a…
We study a new type of large-scale instability, which arises in obliquely rotating stratified electroconductive fluid with an external uniform magnetic field and a small-scale external force having zero helicity. This force gives rise to small-scale oscillations of the velocity with a small Reynolds number. Using the method of multi-scale asymptotic expansions there are obtained nonlinear equations for vortex and magnetic perturbations in the third order in Reynolds number. Studied is the linear stage of magneto-vortex dynamo caused by instabilities of $α$-effect type. Stationary solutions for…
Oceanic waves registered by satellite observations often have curvilinear fronts and propagate over various currents. In this paper, we study long linear and weakly-nonlinear ring waves in a stratified fluid in the presence of a depth-dependent horizontal shear flow. It is shown that despite the clashing geometries of the waves and the shear flow, there exists a linear modal decomposition (different from the known decomposition in Cartesian geometry), which can be used to describe distortion of the wavefronts of surface and internal waves, and systematically derive a 2+1 - dimensional cylindri…
The elliptical instability of a rotating stratified fluid is examined in the regime of small Rossby number and order-one Burger number corresponding to rapid rotation and strong stratification. The Floquet problem describing the linear growth of disturbances to an unbounded, uniform-vorticity elliptical flow is solved using exponential asymptotics. The results demonstrate that the flow is unstable for arbitrarily strong rotation and stratification; in particular, both cyclonic and anticyclonic flows are unstable. The instability is weak, however, with growth rates that are exponentially small …
We perform a non-linear analysis of a fluid-fluid wavy-stratified flow using a simplified two-fluid model, i.e., the fixed-flux model (FFM) which is an adaptation of shallow water theory for the two-layer problem. Linear analysis using the perturbation method illustrates the short-wave physics leading to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). The interface dynamics are chaotic and analysis beyond the onset of instability is required to understand the non-linear evolution of waves. The two-equation FFM solver based on a higher-order spatio-temporal finite difference discretization scheme is us…
Imbibition, the displacement of a nonwetting fluid by a wetting fluid, plays a central role in diverse energy, environmental, and industrial processes. While this process is typically studied in homogeneous porous media with uniform permeabilities, in many cases, the media have multiple parallel strata of different permeabilities. How such stratification impacts the fluid dynamics of imbibition, as well as the fluid saturation after the wetting fluid breaks through to the end of a given medium, is poorly understood. We address this gap in knowledge by developing an analytical model of imbibiti…
Linear stability of horizontal and inclined stratified channel flows of Newtonian/non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluids is investigated with respect to all wavelength perturbations. The Carreau model has been chosen for the modeling of the rheology of a shear-thinning fluid, owing to its capability to describe properly the constant viscosity limits (Newtonian behavior) at low and high shear rates. The results are presented in the form of stability boundaries on flow pattern maps (with the phases' superficial velocities as coordinates) for several practically important gas-liquid and liquid-liqui…
Recent developments of the weak turbulence theory applied to internal waves exhibit a power-law solution of the kinetic energy equation close to the oceanic Garrett \& Munk spectrum, confirming weakly nonlinear wave interactions as a likely explanation of the observed oceanic spectra. However, finite-size effects can hinder wave interactions in bounded domains, and observations often differ from theoretical predictions. This article studies the dynamical regimes experimentally developing in a stratified fluid forced by internal gravity waves in a pentagonal domain. We find that by changing the…
We examine the translation of a sphere in a stably stratified ambient in the limit of small Reynolds ($Re \ll 1$) and viscous Richardson numbers ($Ri_v \ll 1$); here, $Re = \frac{ρUa}μ$ and $Ri_v = \frac{γa^3 g}{μU}$ with $a$ being the sphere radius, $U$ the translation speed, $ρ$ and $μ$ the density and viscosity of the stratified ambient, $g$ the acceleration due to gravity, and $γ$ the density gradient (assumed constant) characterizing the ambient stratification. In contrast to most earlier efforts, our study considers the convection dominant limit corresponding to $Pe = \frac{Ua}{D} \gg 1$…
In the chemical, petroleum and nuclear industries, pipelines are often used to transport fluids from one process site to another one. The understanding of the fluids behavior inside the pipelines is the most important consideration for the engineers and scientists. From the previous studies, there are several two-phase flow patterns in horizontal pipe. One of them is stratified flow pattern, which is characterized by the liquid flowing along the bottom of the pipe and the gas moving above it cocurrently. Another flow patterns are slug and plug flow patterns. This kind of flow triggers the dama…
We study the motion of a rigid sphere falling in a two-layer stratified fluid under the action of gravity in the potential flow regime. Experiments at a moderate Reynolds number of approximately 20 to 450 indicate that a sphere with the precise critical density, higher than the bottom layer density, can display behaviors such as bounce or arrestment after crossing the interface. We experimentally demonstrate that such a critical sphere density increases linearly as the bottom fluid density increases with a fixed top fluid density. Additionally, the critical density approaches the bottom layer …
Many key environmental, industrial, and energy processes rely on controlling fluid transport within subsurface porous media. These media are typically structurally heterogeneous, often with vertically-layered strata of distinct permeabilities -- leading to uneven partitioning of flow across strata, which can be undesirable. Here, using direct in situ visualization, we demonstrate that polymer additives can homogenize this flow by inducing a purely-elastic flow instability that generates random spatiotemporal fluctuations and excess flow resistance in individual strata. In particular, we find t…
The interplay between incompressibility and stratification can lead to non-conservation of horizontal momentum in the dynamics of a stably stratified incompressible Euler fluid filling an infinite horizontal channel between rigid upper and lower plates. Lack of conservation occurs even though in this configuration only vertical external forces act on the system. This apparent paradox was seemingly first noticed by Benjamin (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 165, 1986, pp. 445-474) in his classification of the invariants by symmetry groups with the Hamiltonian structure of the Euler equations in two dimensi…
Stratified spin-up experiments in enclosed cylinders have reported the presence of small pockets of well-mixed fluids but quantitative measurements of the mixedness of the fluid has been lacking. Previous numerical simulations have not addressed these measurements. Here we present numerical simulations that address how the combined effect of spin-up and thermal boundary conditions enhances or hinders mixing of a fluid in a cylinder. Measurements of efficiency of mixing are based on the variance of temperature and explained in terms of the potential energy available. The numerical simulations o…
We derive a new hyperbolic model describing the propagation of internal waves in a stratified shallow water with a non-hydrostatic pressure distribution. The construction of the hyperbolic model is based on the use of additional `instantaneous' variables. This allows one to reduce the dispersive multi-layer Green--Naghdi model to a first-order system of evolution equations. The main attention is paid to the study of three-layer flows over uneven bottom in the Boussinesq approximation with the additional assumption of hydrostatic pressure in the intermediate layer. The hyperbolicity conditions …
The hydrodynamic force experienced by a small spherical particle undergoing an arbitrary time-dependent motion in a density-stratified fluid is investigated theoretically. The study is carried out under the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation, and in the limit of small Reynolds and small Péclet numbers. The force acting on the particle is obtained by using matched asymptotic expansions in which the small parameter is given by a/l where a is the particle radius and l is the stratification length defined by Ardekani & Stocker (2010), which depends on the Brunt-Vaisala frequency, on the fluid kinem…
The theory of 3-layer density stratified ideal fluids is examined with a view towards its generalization to the n-layer case. The focus is on structural properties, especially for the case of a rigid upper lid constraint. We show that the long-wave dispersionless limit is a system of quasi-linear equations that do not admit Riemann invariants. We equip the layer-averaged one-dimensional model with a natural Hamiltonian structure, obtained with a suitable reduction process from the continuous density stratification structure of the full two-dimensional equations proposed by Benjamin. For a a la…
We examine the vertical mixing induced by the swimming of microorganisms at low Reynolds and Péclet numbers in a stably stratified ocean, and show that the global contribution of oceanic microswimmers to vertical mixing is negligible. We propose two approaches to estimating the mixing efficiency, $η$, or the ratio of the rate of potential energy creation to the total rate-of-working on the ocean by microswimmers. The first is based on scaling arguments and estimates $η$ in terms of the ratio between the typical organism size, $a$, and an intrinsic length scale for the stratified flow, $\ell = …
We investigate numerically the dynamics and statistics of inertial particles transported by stratified turbulence, in the case of particle density intermediate in the average density profile of the fluid. In these conditions, particles tend to form a thin layer around the corresponding fluid isopycnal. The thickness of the resulting layer is determined by a balance between buoyancy (which attracts the particle to the isopycnal) and inertia (which prevents them from following it exactly). By means of extensive numerical simulations, we explore the parameter space of the system and we find that …
We examine the problem of performing simultaneous and coplanar Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) measurements in a stratified fluid initially at rest. Our focus is on enabling detailed velocity and density measurements in long internal waves and gravity currents, through relatively small modifications of typical existing PIV systems comprising pulsed lasers, using dye concentration as a proxy for fluid density. Several issues have limited such measurements. These include: (1) variations in the laser intensity and beam structure between laser pulses; (2) PIV …
We study the dynamical regimes of a density-stratified fluid confined between isothermal no-slip top and bottom boundaries (at temperatures $T_t$ and $T_b$) via direct numerical simulation. The thermal expansion coefficient of the fluid is temperature dependent and chosen such that the fluid density is maximum at the inversion temperature $T_b>T_i>T_t$. Thus, the lower layer of the fluid is convectively unstable while the upper layer is stably stratified. We show that the characteristics of the convection change significantly depending on the degree of stratification of the stable layer. For s…
Bluff body wakes in stratified fluids are known to exhibit a rich range of dynamic behavior that can be categorized into different regimes based on Reynolds number ($Re$) and Froude number ($Fr$). Topological differences in wake structure across these different regimes have been clarified recently through the use of Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) on Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and laboratory data for a sphere in a stratified fluid for $Re\in [200,1000]$ and $Fr\in[0.5,16]$. In this work, we attempt to identify the dynamic regime from limited measurement data in a stratified wake with (…
