Frozen water might appear opaque since gas bubbles can get trapped in the ice during the freezing process. They nucleate and then grow near the advancing solidification front, due to the formation of a gas supersaturation region in its vicinity. A delicate interplay between the rate of mass transfer and the rate of freezing dictates the final shapes and sizes of the entrapped gas bubbles. In this work, we experimentally and numerically investigate the initial growth of such gas bubbles that nucleate and grow near the advancing ice front. We show that the initial growth of these bubbles is governed by diffusion and is enhanced due to a combination of the presence of the background gas concentration gradient and the motion of the approaching front. Additionally, we recast the problem into that of mass transfer to a moving spherical object in a homogeneous concentration field, finding good agreement between our experimental data and the existing scaling relations for that latter problem. Lastly, we address how fluid flow around the bubble might further affect this growth and qualitatively explore this through numerical simulations.

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of rotating pipe flows up to $Re_\tau \approx 3000$ is carried out to investigate drag reduction effects associated with axial rotation, extending previous studies carried out at a modest Reynolds number (Orlandi & Fatica, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 343, 1997, pp. 43–72; Orlandi & Ebstein, Intl J. Heat Fluid Flow, vol. 21, 2000, pp. 499–505). The results show that the drag reduction, which we theoretically show to be equivalent to net power saving assuming no mechanical losses, monotonically increases as either the Reynolds number or the rotation number increases, proportionally to the inner-scaled rotational speed. Net drag reduction up to approximately $70\,\%$ is observed, while being far from flow relaminarisation. Scaling laws for the mean axial and azimuthal velocity are proposed, from which a predictive formula for the friction factor is derived. The formula can correctly represent the dependency of the friction factor on the Reynolds and rotation numbers, maintaining good accuracy for low-to-moderate rotation numbers. Examination of the turbulent structures highlights the role of rotation in widening and elongating the small-scale streaks, with subsequent suppression of sweeps and ejections. In the core part of the flow, clear weakening of large-scale turbulent motions is observed at high Reynolds numbers, with subsequent suppression of the outer-layer peak in the pre-multiplied spectra. The Fukagata–Iwamoto–Kasagi decomposition indicates that, consistent with a theoretically derived formula, the outer layer yields the largest contribution to drag reduction at increasingly high Reynolds numbers. In contrast, both the inner and the outer layers contribute to drag reduction as the rotation number increases.

The development of a bubble plume from a vertical gas-evolving electrode is driven by buoyancy and hydrodynamic bubble dispersion. This canonical fluid mechanics problem is relevant for both thermal and electrochemical processes. We adopt a mixture model formulation for the two-phase flow, considering variable density (beyond Boussinesq), viscosity and hydrodynamic bubble dispersion. Introducing a new change of coordinates, inspired by the Lees–Dorodnitsyn transformation, we obtain a new self-similar solution for the laminar boundary layer equations. The results predict a wall gas fraction and gas plume thickness that increase with height to the power of 1/5 before asymptotically reaching unity and scaling with height to the power 2/5, respectively. The vertical velocity scales with height to the power of 3/5. Our analysis shows that self-similarity is only possible if gas conservation is entirely formulated in terms of the gas specific volume instead of the gas fraction.

Direct numerical simulations of the droplet impact on a flat solid surface with an annular part are conducted. We investigate droplet impact on a superhydrophobic substrate with a superhydrophilic annulus to understand the formation conditions of droplets in different states. The location and size of superhydrophilic annulus are carried out through the phase diagram. We describe the formation process of droplets in three different states and the spreading radius with time to catch the rupture time of the film. Two different ruptures occur in the spreading stage or the retraction stage, respectively. The rupture times from these two mechanisms observed numerically are found to be a key factor resulting in partial rebound and lens-shaped/ring-shaped droplets. Finally, the influence of non-dimensional numbers on the formation of the ring-shaped droplet is demonstrated. The Weber number can alter the amplitude of the up and down oscillation on the droplet's upper surface, while the Froude number affects primarily the time to form the central penetrating hole. This gives the guidance and method to control the ring-shaped droplets formation time.

An experimental investigation is conducted to study the flow patterns, spectral properties and energy fluxes in thin-layer turbulence with varying system sizes and damping rates. It is found that although a system-size vortex (an indicator of spectral condensation) occurs for small system sizes and does not for large ones, the spectra for different system sizes consistently exhibit a scaling close to $k^{-3}$ in inverse cascade (another indicator of spectral condensation). On the other hand, under a fixed system size larger than the friction-dominated length scale, the energy spectrum in the inverse cascade range changes from $k^{-3}$ to $k^{-5/3}$ as the damping rate increases, suggesting that the friction-dominated length scale may not be a suitable parameter for predicting spectral transition. At lower damping rates and large system sizes, turbulent structures grow larger via inverse cascade, manifesting as long streamers, and the small-scale vortices are suppressed. This suppression leads to a reduction of energy flux at intermediate scales and a change in the spectral shape. The dimensionless Taylor microscale is found to exhibit a monotonic dependence on the damping rate. With the reduction in the damping rate, the Taylor microscale increases to become comparable with the forcing scale, and the spectrum in inverse cascade transits to a steeper scaling, $k^{-3}$, indicating that the dimensionless Taylor microscale may be used as a diagnostic parameter for spectral transition.

Cross-stream migration of a deformable fluid particle is investigated computationally in a pressure-driven channel flow of a viscoelastic fluid via interface-resolved simulations. Flow equations are solved fully coupled with the Giesekus model equations using an Eulerian–Lagrangian method and extensive simulations are performed for a wide range of flow parameters to reveal the effects of particle deformability, fluid elasticity, shear thinning and fluid inertia on the particle migration dynamics. Migration rate of a deformable particle is found to be much higher than that of a solid particle under similar flow conditions mainly due to the free-slip condition on its surface. It is observed that the direction of particle migration can be altered by varying shear thinning of the ambient fluid. With a strong shear thinning, the particle migrates towards the wall while it migrates towards the channel centre in a purely elastic fluid without shear thinning. An onset of elastic flow instability is observed beyond a critical Weissenberg number, which in turn causes a path instability even for a nearly spherical particle. An inertial path instability is also observed once particle deformation exceeds a critical value. Shear thinning is found to be suppressing the path instability in a viscoelastic fluid with a high polymer concentration whereas it reverses its role and promotes path instability in a dilute polymer solution. It is found that migration of a deformable particle towards the wall induces a secondary flow with a velocity that is approximately an order of magnitude higher than the one induced by a solid particle under similar flow conditions.

This study presents direct numerical simulation results of two-layer Rayleigh–Bénard convection, investigating the previously unexplored Rayleigh–Weber parameter space $10^6\leq Ra\leq 10^8$ and $10^2\leq We\leq 10^3$. Global properties, such as the Nusselt and Reynolds numbers, are compared against the extended Grossmann–Lohse theory for two fluid layers, confirming a weak Weber number dependence for all global quantities and considerably larger Reynolds numbers in the lighter fluid. Statistics of the flow reveal that the interface fluctuates more intensely for larger Weber and smaller Rayleigh numbers, something also reflected in the increased temperature root mean square values next to the interface. The dynamics of the deformed two-fluid interface is further investigated using spectral analysis. Temporal and spatial spectrum distributions reveal a capillary wave range at small Weber and large Rayleigh numbers, and a secondary energy peak at smaller Rayleigh numbers. Furthermore, the maxima of the space–time spectra lie in an intermediate dispersion regime, between the theoretical predictions for capillary and gravity-capillary waves, showing that the gravitational energy of the interfacial waves is strongly altered by temperature gradients.

Linear stability analysis currently fails to predict turbulence transition in canonical viscous flows. We show that two alternative models of the boundary condition for incipient perturbations at solid walls produce linear instabilities that could be sufficient to explain turbulence transition. In many cases, the near-wall behaviour of the discovered instabilities is empirically indistinguishable from the classical no-slip condition. The ability of these alternative boundary conditions to predict linear instabilities that are consistent with turbulence transition suggests that the no-slip condition may be an overly simplified model of fluid–solid interface physics, particularly as a description of the flow perturbations that lead to turbulence transition in wall-bounded flows.

In this study, we analyse ‘magneto-Stokes’ flow, a fundamental magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow that shares the cylindrical-annular geometry of the Taylor–Couette cell but uses applied electromagnetic forces to circulate a free-surface layer of electrolyte at low Reynolds numbers. The first complete, analytical solution for time-dependent magneto-Stokes flow is presented and validated with coupled laboratory and numerical experiments. Three regimes are distinguished (shallow-layer, transitional and deep-layer flow regimes), and their influence on the efficiency of microscale mixing is clarified. The solution in the shallow-layer limit belongs to a newly identified class of MHD potential flows, and thus induces mixing without the aid of axial vorticity. We show that these shallow-layer magneto-Stokes flows can still augment mixing in distinct Taylor dispersion and advection-dominated mixing regimes. The existence of enhanced mixing across all three distinguished flow regimes is predicted by asymptotic scaling laws and supported by three-dimensional numerical simulations. Mixing enhancement is initiated with the least electromagnetic forcing in channels with order-unity depth-to-gap-width ratios. If the strength of the electromagnetic forcing is not a constraint, then shallow-layer flows can still yield the shortest mixing times in the advection-dominated limit. Our robust description of momentum evolution and mixing of passive tracers makes the annular magneto-Stokes system fit for use as an MHD reference flow.

Lozano-Duran et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 914, 2021, p. A8) have recently identified the ability of streamwise-averaged turbulent streak fields ${\mathcal {U}}(y,z,t)\hat {\boldsymbol {x}}$ in minimal channels to produce short-term transient growth as the key linear mechanism needed to sustain turbulence at $Re_{\tau }=180$. Here, in an attempt to extend this result to larger domains and higher $Re_{\tau }$, we model this streak transient growth as a two-stage linear process by first selecting the dominant streak structure expected to emerge over the eddy turnover time on the turbulent mean profile $U(y)\hat {\boldsymbol {x}}$, and then examining the secondary growth on this (frozen) streak field ${\mathcal {U}}(y,z)\hat {\boldsymbol {x}}$. Choosing the mean streak amplitude and eddy turnover time consistent with simulations captures the growth thresholds found by Lozano-Duran et al. (2021) for sustained turbulence. In a larger domain at $Re_{\tau }=180$, the most energetic near-wall streaks observed in simulations are close to the predicted optimal streaks. This most energetic streak spacing, approaches the optimal streak at $Re_{\tau }=550$ where the secondary growth possible on each also comes together. A key prediction from the model is that the threshold transient growth required to sustain turbulence decreases with increasing $Re_{\tau }$. More fundamentally, the work of Lozano-Duran et al. (2021) and our results suggest a subtle but significant revision of Malkus's (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 1, 1956, pp. 521–539) classic hypothesis concerning realisable turbulent mean profiles. The key property for a realisable turbulent mean profile could be the ability to generate sufficient short-term transient growth rather than dependence on its (long-term) linear stability characteristics, which was Malkus's original idea.

We explore the drawing of a shear-thinning or shear-thickening thread with an axisymmetric hole that evolves due to axial drawing, inertia and surface tension effects. The stress is assumed to be proportional to the shear rate raised to the $n$th power. The presence of non-Newtonian rheology and surface tension forces acting on the hole introduces radial pressure gradients that make the derivation of long-wavelength equations significantly more challenging than either a Newtonian thread with a hole or shear-thinning and shear-thickening threads without a hole. In the case of weak surface tension, we determine the steady-state profiles. Our results show that for negligible inertia the hole size at the exit becomes smaller as $n$ is decreased (i.e. strong shear-thinning effects) above a critical draw ratio, but surprisingly the opposite is true below this critical draw ratio. We determine an accurate estimate of the critical draw ratio and also discuss how inertia affects this process. We further show that the dynamics of hole closure is dominated by a different limit, and we determine the asymptotic forms of the hole closure process for shear-thinning and shear-thickening fluids with inertia. A linear instability analysis is conducted to predict the onset of draw resonance. We show that increased shear thinning, surface tension and inlet hole size all act to destabilise the flow. We also show that increasing shear-thinning effects reduce the critical Reynolds number required for unconditional stability. Our study provides valuable insights into the drawing process and its dependence on the physical effects.

The asymmetric instability in two streamwise orthogonal planes for three-dimensional flow-induced vibration (FIV) of an elastically mounted cube at a moderate Reynolds number of 300 is numerically investigated in this paper. The full-order computational fluid dynamics method, data-driven stability analysis via the eigensystem realization algorithm and the selective frequency damping method and total dynamic mode decomposition (TDMD) are applied here to explore this problem. Due to the unsteady non-axisymmetric wakefield formed for flow passing a stationary cube, the FIV response was found to exhibit separate structural stability and oscillations (including lock-in and galloping behaviour) in the two different streamwise orthogonal planes while the body is released. The initial kinetic energy accompanying the release of the cube could destabilize the above-mentioned structural stability. The observed FIV asymmetric instability is verified by the root trajectory of the structural mode obtained via data-driven stability analysis. The stability of the structural modes dominates regardless of whether the structural response oscillates significantly in various (reduced) velocity ranges. Further TDMD analysis on the wake structure, accompanied by the time–frequency spectrum of time-history structural displacements, suggested that the present FIV unit with galloping behaviour is dominated by the combination of the shifted base-flow mode, structure modes and several harmonics of the wake mode.

We propose a data-driven methodology to learn a low-dimensional manifold of controlled flows. The starting point is resolving snapshot flow data for a representative ensemble of actuations. Key enablers for the actuation manifold are isometric mapping as encoder, and a combination of a neural network and a $k$-nearest-neighbour interpolation as decoder. This methodology is tested for the fluidic pinball, a cluster of three parallel cylinders perpendicular to the oncoming uniform flow. The centres of these cylinders are the vertices of an equilateral triangle pointing upstream. The flow is manipulated by constant rotation of the cylinders, i.e. described by three actuation parameters. The Reynolds number based on a cylinder diameter is chosen to be $30$. The unforced flow yields statistically symmetric periodic shedding represented by a one-dimensional limit cycle. The proposed methodology yields a five-dimensional manifold describing a wide range of dynamics with small representation error. Interestingly, the manifold coordinates automatically unveil physically meaningful parameters. Two of them describe the downstream periodic vortex shedding. The other three describe the near-field actuation, i.e. the strength of boat-tailing, the Magnus effect and forward stagnation point. The manifold is shown to be a key enabler for control-oriented flow estimation.

This study uses high-fidelity simulations (direct numerical simulation or large-eddy simulation) and experimental datasets to analyse the effect of non-equilibrium streamwise mean pressure gradients (adverse or favourable), including attached and separated flows, on the statistics of boundary-layer wall-pressure fluctuations. The datasets collected span a wide range of Reynolds numbers ($Re_\theta$ from 300 to 23 400) and pressure gradients (Clauser parameter from $-0.5$ to 200). The datasets are used to identify an optimal set of variables to scale the wall-pressure spectrum: edge velocity, boundary layer thickness and the peak magnitude of Reynolds shear stress. Using the present datasets, existing semi-empirical models of the wall-pressure spectrum are shown unable to capture effects of strong, non-equilibrium adverse pressure gradients, due to inappropriate scaling of the wall pressure using the wall shear stress, calibration with limited types of flows and dependency on model parameters based on the friction velocity, which reduces to zero at the detachment point. To address these shortcomings, a generalized wall-pressure spectral model is developed with parameters that characterize the extent of the logarithmic layer and the strength of the wake. Derived from the local mean streamwise velocity profile, these two parameters inherently carry the effect of the Reynolds number, as well as those of the non-equilibrium pressure gradient and its history. Comparison with existing models shows that the proposed model behaves well and is more accurate in strong-pressure-gradient flows and in separated-flow regions.

The plane Poiseuille flow of a rarefied gas in a finite length channel, driven by an axial pressure gradient, is analysed numerically to probe (i) the role of ‘dilatation’ ($\varDelta ={\boldsymbol \nabla }\boldsymbol {\cdot }{\boldsymbol u}\neq 0$) on its thermohydrodynamics as well as to clarify (ii) the possible equivalence with its well-studied ‘dilatation-free’ or ‘isochoric’ (${\rm D}\rho /{\rm D}t=0$) counterpart driven by a constant acceleration. Focussing on the mass flow rate ${\mathcal {M}}({Kn})$, which is an invariant quantity for both pressure-driven and acceleration-driven Poiseuille flows, it is shown that while ${\mathcal {M}}\sim \log {{Kn}}$ at ${Kn}\gg 1$ in the acceleration-driven case, the mass flow saturates to a constant value ${\mathcal {M}}\sim {{Kn}}^0$ at ${Kn}\gg 1$ in the pressure-driven case due to the finite length ($L_x<\infty$) of the channel. The latter result agrees with prior theory and recent experiments, and holds irrespective of the magnitude of the axial pressure gradient ($G_p$). The pressure-dilatation cooling ($\varPhi _p=-p\varDelta <0$) is shown to be responsible for the absence of the bimodal shape of the temperature profile in the pressure-driven Poiseuille flow. The dilatation-driven reduction of the shear viscosity and the odd signs of two normal stress differences (${\mathcal {N}}_1$ and ${\mathcal {N}}_2$) in the pressure-driven flow in comparison with those in its acceleration-driven counterpart are explained from the Burnett-order constitutive relations for the stress tensor. While both ${\mathcal {N}}_1$ and ${\mathcal {N}}_2$ appear at the Burnett order $O({{Kn}}^2)$ in the acceleration-driven flow, the leading term in ${\mathcal N}_1$ scales as $(\mu/p)\varDelta$ due to the non-zero dilatation in the pressure-driven Poiseuille flow which confirms that the two flows are not equivalent even at the Navier–Stokes–Fourier order $O({{Kn}})$. The heat-flow rate (${{\mathcal {Q}}_q}_x=\int q_x(x,y) \,{{\rm d} y}$) of the tangential heat flux is found to be negative (i.e. directed against the axial pressure gradient), in contrast to its positive asymptotic value (at ${Kn}\gg 1$) in the acceleration-driven flow. Similar to the scale-dependence of the mass flow rate, ${{\mathcal {Q}}_q}_x({{Kn}}, L_x)$ is found to saturate to a constant value at ${Kn}\gg 1$ in finite length channels. The double-well shape of the $q_x(y)$-profile in the near-continuum limit agrees well with predictions from a generalized Fourier law. On the whole, the dilatation-driven signatures (such as the pressure-dilatation work and the ‘normal’ shear-rate differences) are shown to be the progenitor for the observed differences between the two flows with regard to (i) the hydrodynamic fields, (ii) the rheology and (iii) the flow-induced heat transfer.

Bistable states for a sufficiently large amount of liquid can appear in an eccentric capillary due to the eccentricity effect under zero gravity (J. Fluid Mech, vol. 863, 2019, pp. 364–385). A transverse body force, which can lead to rich physical phenomena of a droplet, may lead to multistable states (bistability, tristability and the likes) of a sufficiently large amount of liquid in a capillary. We theoretically investigate this situation in a circular or annular capillary tube under a transverse body force. The results show that there can be tristable (bistable) states in an annular (circular) capillary tube: an occluding configuration and two (one) non-occluding configurations. In the annular tube, for one of the non-occluding configurations, the gas–liquid interface in the middle cross-section of the droplet meets both the inner and outer walls of the tube (bridging configuration); for the other non-occluding configuration, the gas–liquid interface in the middle cross-section of the droplet does not meet the inner wall (non-bridging configuration). The multistability is dependent on the Bond number, the contact angle and the cross-sectional shape. The multistability cannot occur for a zero or very large Bond number. A hydrophilic condition (the contact angle smaller than 90°) contributes to the non-occluding non-bridging configuration, while the hydrophobic condition (the contact angle larger than 90°) contributes to the non-occluding bridging configuration (only for the annular capillary). For the annular capillary with a not-so-large contact angle, increasing the inner-to-outer radius ratio can lead to a larger range of Bond numbers, in which the multistability occurs.

The flow of a nematic liquid crystal in a Hele-Shaw cell with an electrically controlled viscous obstruction is investigated using both a theoretical model and physical experiments. The viscous obstruction is created by temporarily electrically altering the viscosity of the nematic in a region of the cell across which an electric field is applied. The theoretical model is validated experimentally for a circular cylindrical obstruction, demonstrating user-controlled flow manipulation of an anisotropic liquid within a heterogeneous single-phase microfluidic device.