Linear water waves with vorticity: Rotational features and particle paths

We study steady linear gravity waves of small amplitude travelling on a current of constant vorticity. For positive vorticity the situation resembles that of Stokes waves, but if the vorticity is large enough the particle trajectories are affected. For negative vorticity we show that there may appear internal waves and vortices, wherein the particle trajectories are not ellipses.     

PARALLEL ADAPTIVE SIMULATION OF A PLUNGING LIQUID JET

This paper is concerned with three-dimensional numerical simulation of a plunging liquid jet. The transient processes of forming an air cavity around the jet, capturing an initially large air bubble, and the break-up of this large toroidal-shaped bubble into smaller bubbles were analyzed. A stabilized finite element method （FEM） was employed under parallel numerical simulations based on adaptive, unstructured grid and coupled with a level-set method to track the interface between air and liquid. These simulations show that the inertia of the liquid jet initially depresses the pool＇s surface, forming an annular air cavity which surrounds the liquid jet. A toroidal liquid eddy which is subse- quently formed in the liquid pool results in air cavity collapse, and in turn entrains air into the liquid pool from the unstable annular air gap region around the liquid jet.     

Asymptotic behavior toward the combination of contact discontinuity with rarefaction waves for 1-D compressible viscous gas with radiation

This paper is concerned with the large-time behavior toward the combination of two rarefaction waves and viscous contact wave for the Cauchy problem to a one-dimensional Navier–Stokes–Poisson coupled system, modeling the dynamics of a viscous gas in the presence of radiation. We show that the composite wave with small strength is asymptotically stable under partially large initial perturbations. The proofs are based on the more refined energy estimates to control the possible growth of the perturbations induced by two different waves and large data.     

Modulational Instability in the Whitham Equation for Water Waves

We show that periodic traveling waves with sufficiently small amplitudes of the Whitham equation, which incorporates the dispersion relation of surface water waves and the nonlinearity of the shallow water equations, are spectrally unstable to long‐wavelengths perturbations if the wave number is greater than a critical value, bearing out the Benjamin–Feir instability of Stokes waves; they are spectrally stable to square integrable perturbations otherwise. The proof involves a spectral perturbation of the associated linearized operator with respect to the Floquet exponent and the small‐amplitude parameter. We extend the result to related, nonlinear dispersive equations.     

Nonlinear Hamiltonian waves with constant frequency and surface waves on vorticity discontinuities

Waves with constant, nonzero linearized frequency form an interesting class of nondispersive waves whose properties differ from those of nondispersive hyperbolic waves. We propose an inviscid Burgers‐Hilbert equation as a model equation for such waves and give a dimensional argument to show that it models Hamiltonian surface waves with constant frequency. Using the method of multiple scales, we derive a cubically nonlinear, quasi‐linear, nonlocal asymptotic equation for weakly nonlinear solutions. We show that the same asymptotic equation describes surface waves on a planar discontinuity in vorticity in two‐dimensional inviscid, incompressible fluid flows. Thus, the Burgers‐Hilbert equation provides an effective equation for these waves. We describe the Hamiltonian structure of the Burgers‐Hilbert and asymptotic equations, and show that the asymptotic equation can also be derived by means of a near‐identity transformation. We derive a semiclassical approximation of the asymptotic equation and show that spatially periodic, harmonic traveling waves are linearly and modulationally stable. Numerical solutions of the Burgers‐Hilbert and asymptotic equations are in excellent agreement in the appropriate regime. In particular, the lifespan of small‐amplitude smooth solutions of the Burgers‐Hilbert equation is given by the cubically nonlinear timescale predicted by the asymptotic equation. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Derivation of a contact law between a free fluid and thin porous layers via asymptotic analysis methods

We describe the asymptotic behaviour of an incompressible viscous free fluid in contact with a porous layer flow through the porous layer surface. This porous layer has a small thickness and consists of thin channels periodically distributed. Two scales are present in this porous medium, one associated to the periodicity of the distribution of the channels and the other to the size of these channels. Proving estimates on the solution of this Stokes problem, we establish a critical link between these two scales. We prove that the limit problem is a Stokes flow in the free domain with further boundary conditions on the basis of the domain which involve an extra velocity, an extra pressure and two second-order tensors. This limit problem is obtained using Γ-convergence methods. We finally consider the case of a Navier–Stokes flow within this context.     

Travelling waves of the KP equations with transverse modulations

Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equations arise genetically in modelling nonlinear wave propagation for primarily unidirectional long waves of small amplitude with weak transverse dependence. In the case when transverse dispersion is positive (such as for water waves with large surface tension) we investigate the existence of transversely modulated travelling waves near one-dimensional solitary waves. Using bifurcation theory we show the existence of a unique branch of periodically modulated solitary waves. Then, we briefly discuss the case when the transverse dispersion is negative (such as for water waves with zero surface tension).     

Asymptotics of Stationary Navier Stokes Equations in Higher Dimensions

We show that the asymptotics of solutions to stationary Navier Stokes equations in 4, 5 or 6 dimensions in the whole space with a smooth compactly supported forcing are given by the linear Stokes equation. We do not need to assume any smallness condition. The result is in contrast to three dimensions, where the asymptotics for steady states are different from the linear Stokes equation, even for small data, while the large data case presents an open problem. The case of dimension n = 2 is still harder.     

Damping of sound and vibration by flow nonlinearity in the apertures of a perforated elastic screen

An analysis is made of the influence of flow nonlinearity inthe apertures of a perforated elastic plate on the damping ofsound and flexural vibrations. Fluid is forced through the perforationsby the pressure differential established across the plate bythe incident disturbance. The Reynolds number is assumed tobe sufficiently large that separation occurs, and the reciprocatingaperture flows form ‘jets’ on alternate sides ofthe plate. The growth of these jets is modelled by means ofa nonlinear equation proposed by Cummings (1986). This equationis solved simultaneously with a generalized bending wave equationderived by the author (Howe, 1995a) which governs motions ofa perforated elastic plate whose lengths scales are large comparedto the aperture spacing. It is shown that significant attenuationsof large amplitude acoustic waves can occur except when thefrequency is so small that the plate is acoustically transparent.Bending waves are also damped provided the amplitude of theplate surface velocity is not too large and the frequency issmall enough to ensure the formation of substantial jets inthe apertures. Numerical results are given for large amplitudesound waves incident on a perforated screen in air, and forbending waves propagating over aluminium and steel screens immersedin either air or water.     

Relaxation in Reactive Flows

We consider convective systems in a bounded domain, in which viscous fluids described by the Stokes system are coupled using the Boussinesq approximation to a reaction-advection-diffusion equation for the temperature. We show that the resulting flows possess relaxation-enhancing properties in the sense of [CoKRZ]. In particular, we show that solutions of the nonlinear problems become small when gravity is sufficiently strong due to the improved interaction with the cold boundary. As an application, we deduce that the explosion threshold for power-like nonlinearities tends to infinity in the large Rayleigh number limit. We also discuss the behavior of the principal eigenvalues of the corresponding advection-diffusion problem and the quenching phenomenon for reaction-diffusion equations. Received: March 2007, Revision: May 2007, Accepted: May 2007     

A finite element,filtered eddy-viscosity method for the Navier–Stokes equations with large Reynolds number

The direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes system in turbulent regimes is a formidable task due to the disparate scales that have to be resolved. Turbulence modeling attempts to mitigate this situation by somehow accounting for the effects of small-scale behavior on that at large-scales, without explicitly resolving the small scales. One such approach is to add viscosity to the problem; the Smagorinsky and Ladyzhenskaya models and other eddy-viscosity models are examples of this approach. Unfortunately, this approach usually results in over-dampening at the large scales, i.e., large-scale structures are unphysically smeared out. To overcome this fault of simple eddy-viscosity modeling, filtered eddy-viscosity methods that add artificial viscosity only to the high-frequency modes were developed in the context of spectral methods. We apply the filtered eddy-viscosity idea to finite element methods based on hierarchical basis functions. We prove the existence and uniqueness of the finite element approximation and its convergence to solutions of the Navier–Stokes system; we also derive error estimates for finite element approximations.     

On a linearized problem arising in the Navier–Stokes flow of a free liquid jet

In this work, we analyze a Stokes problem arising in the study of the Navier–Stokes flow of a liquid jet. The analysis is accomplished by showing that the relevant Stokes operator accounting for a free surface gives rise to a sectorial operator which generates an analytic semigroup of contractions. Estimates on solutions are established using Fourier methods. The result presented is the key ingredient in a local existence and uniqueness proof for solutions of the full nonlinear problem.     

Orbital stability of solitary waves on a ferrofluid jet

We prove the orbital stability of small-amplitude axisymmetric solitary waves on the surface of an incompressible, inviscid ferrofluid jet. The ferrofluid surrounds a current-carrying rod and is subject to the azimuthal magnetic field generated by the rod. We show that under appropriate assumptions on the magnitude of the magnetic intensity in the ferrofluid, both the trivial flow and the solitary waves with strong surface tension are conditionally orbitally stable, while the conditional orbital stability of solitary waves with near-critical surface tension can be deduced from properties of the corresponding dispersive PDE model equation. The arguments are based on the recent orbital stability results for internal waves by Chen and Walsh (2022) and an improved version of the Grillakis–Shatah–Strauss method introduced by Varholm et al. (2020).     

Global existence of strong solution for the Cucker–Smale–Navier–Stokes system

We present a global existence theory for strong solution to the Cucker–Smale–Navier–Stokes system in a periodic domain, when initial data is sufficiently small. To model interactions between flocking particles and an incompressible viscous fluid, we couple the kinetic Cucker–Smale model and the incompressible Navier–Stokes system using a drag force mechanism that is responsible for the global flocking between particles and fluids. We also revisit the emergence of time-asymptotic flocking via new functionals measuring local variances of particles and fluid around their local averages and the distance between local averages velocities. We show that the particle and fluid velocities are asymptotically aligned to the common velocity, when the viscosity of the incompressible fluid is sufficiently large compared to the sup-norm of the particles' local mass density.     

The influence of electric fields and surface tension on Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in two-dimensional jets

We consider nonlinear aspects of the flow of an inviscid two-dimensional jet into a second immiscible fluid of different density and unbounded extent. Velocity jumps are supported at the interface, and the flow is susceptible to the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. We investigate theoretically the effects of horizontal electric fields and surface tension on the nonlinear evolution of the jet. This is accomplished by developing a long-wave matched asymptotic analysis that incorporates the influence of the outer regions on the dynamics of the jet. The result is a coupled system of long-wave nonlinear, nonlocal evolution equations governing the interfacial amplitude and corresponding horizontal velocity, for symmetric interfacial deformations. The theory allows for amplitudes that scale with the undisturbed jet thickness and is therefore capable of predicting singular events such as jet pinching. In the absence of surface tension, a sufficiently strong electric field completely stabilizes (linearly) the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability at all wavelengths by the introduction of a dispersive regularization of a nonlocal origin. The dispersion relation has the same functional form as the destabilizing Kelvin–Helmholtz terms, but is of a different sign. If the electric field is weak or absent, then surface tension is included to regularize Kelvin–Helmholtz instability and to provide a well-posed nonlinear problem. We address the nonlinear problems numerically using spectral methods and establish two distinct dynamical behaviors. In cases where the linear theory predicts dispersive regularization (whether surface tension is present or not), then relatively large initial conditions induce a nonlinear flow that is oscillatory in time (in fact quasi-periodic) with a basic oscillation predicted well by linear theory and a second nonlinearly induced lower frequency that is responsible for quasi-periodic modulations of the spatio-temporal dynamics. If the parameters are chosen so that the linear theory predicts a band of long unstable waves (surface tension now ensures that short waves are dispersively regularized), then the flow generically evolves to a finite-time rupture singularity. This has been established numerically for rather general initial conditions.     

Singularities of Bernoulli Free Boundaries

In this article we show that, for a large class of Bernoulli problems, a free boundary which is symmetric with respect to a vertical line through an isolated singular point must necessarily have a corner at that point, and we give a formula for the contained angle. The assumptions used admit the possibility of other singular points, even uncountably many, on the free boundary. This result is an extension of the first Stokes conjecture in the theory of hydrodynamic waves. We also show that, even in the presence of singularities, a geometrically simple Bernoulli free boundary is necessarily symmetric.     

The influence of electric fields and surface tension on Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in two-dimensional jets

We consider nonlinear aspects of the flow of an inviscid two-dimensional jet into a second immiscible fluid of different density and unbounded extent. Velocity jumps are supported at the interface, and the flow is susceptible to the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. We investigate theoretically the effects of horizontal electric fields and surface tension on the nonlinear evolution of the jet. This is accomplished by developing a long-wave matched asymptotic analysis that incorporates the influence of the outer regions on the dynamics of the jet. The result is a coupled system of long-wave nonlinear, nonlocal evolution equations governing the interfacial amplitude and corresponding horizontal velocity, for symmetric interfacial deformations. The theory allows for amplitudes that scale with the undisturbed jet thickness and is therefore capable of predicting singular events such as jet pinching. In the absence of surface tension, a sufficiently strong electric field completely stabilizes (linearly) the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability at all wavelengths by the introduction of a dispersive regularization of a nonlocal origin. The dispersion relation has the same functional form as the destabilizing Kelvin–Helmholtz terms, but is of a different sign. If the electric field is weak or absent, then surface tension is included to regularize Kelvin–Helmholtz instability and to provide a well-posed nonlinear problem. We address the nonlinear problems numerically using spectral methods and establish two distinct dynamical behaviors. In cases where the linear theory predicts dispersive regularization (whether surface tension is present or not), then relatively large initial conditions induce a nonlinear flow that is oscillatory in time (in fact quasi-periodic) with a basic oscillation predicted well by linear theory and a second nonlinearly induced lower frequency that is responsible for quasi-periodic modulations of the spatio-temporal dynamics. If the parameters are chosen so that the linear theory predicts a band of long unstable waves (surface tension now ensures that short waves are dispersively regularized), then the flow generically evolves to a finite-time rupture singularity. This has been established numerically for rather general initial conditions.     

Direct Numerical Simulation of Liquid Films with Large Interfacial Deformation††

Liquid films are important in many industrial applications, but also from a fundamental point of view, they are important two-phase flow systems. In this paper, we develop a sharp interface/level set method for the Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of liquid films with large interfacial deformations, and large density ratio between the liquid and the gas phase. We use the ghost fluid method to capture the interface motion without smoothing properties across it, and adopt a maximization scheme for the implicit treatment of the viscous term in the Navier–Stokes equations. Because liquid films have very low average depth compared to the distance between waves, several innovations are required to handle solving the equations on grid structures of high aspect ratio. Two-dimensional (2D) calculations for wavy films falling down a vertical wall are presented, and good agreement is found when numerical solutions are directly compared with the experiments of Nosoko et al. [ 1 ]. Some results are also presented for falling liquid films transitioning naturally from 2D to 3D surface wave structures demonstrating the potential of the method for 3D fully coupled two-phase liquid films simulations.     

A Numerical Study of the Exact Evolution Equations for Surface Waves in Water of Finite Depth

We describe a pseudo-spectral numerical method to solve the systems of one-dimensional evolution equations for free surface waves in a homogeneous layer of an ideal fluid. We use the method to solve a system of one-dimensional integro-differential equations, first proposed by Ovsjannikov and later derived by Dyachenko, Zakharov, and Kuznetsov, to simulate the exact evolution of nonlinear free surface waves governed by the two-dimensional Euler equations. These equations are written in the transformed plane where the free surface is mapped onto a flat surface and do not require the common assumption that the waves have small amplitude used in deriving the weakly nonlinear Korteweg–de Vries and Boussinesq long-wave equations. We compare the solution of the exact reduced equations with these weakly nonlinear long-wave models and with the nonlinear long-wave equations of Su and Gardner that do not assume the waves have small amplitude. The Su and Gardner solutions are in remarkably close agreement with the exact Euler solutions for large amplitude solitary wave interactions while the interactions of low-amplitude solitary waves of all four models agree. The simulations demonstrate that our method is an efficient and accurate approach to integrate all of these equations and conserves the mass, momentum, and energy of the Euler equations over very long simulations.     

Modulational instability in a full‐dispersion shallow water model

We propose a shallow water model that combines the dispersion relation of water waves and Boussinesq equations, and that extends the Whitham equation to permit bidirectional propagation. We show that its sufficiently small and periodic traveling wave is spectrally unstable to long wavelength perturbations if the wave number is greater than a critical value, like the Benjamin‐Feir instability of a Stokes wave. We verify that the associated linear operator possesses infinitely many collisions of purely imaginary eigenvalues, but they do not contribute to instability to the leading order in the amplitude parameter. We discuss the effects of surface tension. The results agree with those from a formal asymptotic expansion and a numerical computation for the physical problem.