Search

Using experiments and numerical simulations, we investigate the spontaneous spreading of droplets of aqueous glycerol (Newtonian) and aqueous polymer (shear-thinning) solutions on smooth surfaces. We find that in the first millisecond the spreading of the shear-thinning solutions is identical to the spreading of water, regardless of the polymer concentration. In contrast, aqueous glycerol solutions show a different behavior, namely, significantly slower spreading rate than water. In the initial rapid spreading phase, the dominating forces that can resist the wetting are inertial forces and contact-line friction. For the glycerol solutions, an increase in glycerol concentration effectively increases the contact-line friction, resulting in increased resistance to wetting. For the polymeric solutions, however, an increase in polymer concentration does not modify contact-line friction. As a consequence, the energy dissipation at the contact line can not be controlled by varying the amount of additives for shear-thinning fluids. The reduction of the spreading rate of shear-thinning fluids on smooth surfaces in the rapid wetting regime can only be achieved by increasing solvent viscosity. Our results have implications for phase-change applications where the control of the rapid spreading rate is central, such as anti-icing and soldering

Structures that are periodic on a microscale in three dimensions are abundant in nature, for example, in the cellular arrays that make up living tissue. Such structures can also be engineered, appearing in smart materials1–4, photonic crystals5, chemical reactors6, and medical7 and biomimetic8 technologies. Here we report that fluid–fluid interfacial energy drives three-dimensional (3D) structure emergence in a micropillar scaffold. This finding offers a rapid and scalable way of transforming a simple pillar scaffold into an intricate 3D structure that is periodic on a microscale, comprising a solid microscaffold, a dispersed fluid and a continuous fluid. Structures generated with this technique exhibit a set of unique features, including a stationary internal liquid–liquid interface. Using this approach, we create structures with an internal liquid surface in a regime of interest for liquid–liquid catalysis. We also synthesize soft composites in solid, liquid and gas combinations that have previously not been shown, including actuator materials with temperature-tunable microscale pores. We further demonstrate the potential of this method for constructing 3D materials that mimic tissue with an unprecedented level of control, and for microencapsulating human cells at densities that address an unresolved challenge in cell therapy. The revelation that fluid–fluid interfacial energy can drive structure formation in micropillar scaffolds offers a scalable way of synthesizing soft composites, which may have applications in building materials that mimic biological tissue.

The movement of the triple contact line plays a crucial role in many applications such as ink-jet printing, liquid coating and drainage (imbibition) in porous media. To design accurate computational tools for these applications, predictive models of the moving contact line are needed. However, the basic mechanisms responsible for movement of the triple contact line are not well understood but still debated. We investigate the movement of the contact line between water, vapour and a silica-like solid surface under steady conditions in low capillary number regime. We use molecular dynamics (MD) with an atomistic water model to simulate a nanoscopic drop between two moving plates. We include hydrogen bonding between the water molecules and the solid substrate, which leads to a sub-molecular slip length. We benchmark two continuum methods, the Cahn–Hilliard phase-field (PF) model and a volume-of-fluid (VOF) model, against MD results. We show that both continuum models reproduce the statistical measures obtained from MD reasonably well, with a trade-off in accuracy. We demonstrate the importance of the phase-field mobility parameter and the local slip length in accurately modelling the moving contact line.

Textured hydrophobic surfaces that repel liquid droplets unidirectionally are found in nature such as butterfly wings and ryegrass leaves and are also essential in technological processes such as self-cleaning and anti-icing. However, droplet impact on such surfaces is not fully understood. Here, we study, using a high-speed camera, droplet impact on surfaces with inclined micropillars. We observed directional rebound at high impact speeds on surfaces with dense arrays of pillars. We attribute this asymmetry to the difference in wetting behavior of the structure sidewalls, causing slower retraction of the contact line in the direction against the inclination compared to with the inclination. The experimental observations are complemented with numerical simulations to elucidate the detailed movement of the drops over the pillars. These insights improve our understanding of droplet impact on hydrophobic microstructures and may be a useful for designing structured surfaces for controlling droplet mobility., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures

The motion of the three-phase contact line between two immiscible fluids and a solid surface arises in a variety of wetting phenomena and technological applications. One challenge in continuum theory is the effective representation of molecular phenomena close to the contact line. Here, we characterize the molecular processes of the moving contact line to assess the accuracy of two different continuum two-phase models. Specifically, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a two-dimensional droplet between two moving plates are used to create reference data for different capillary numbers and contact angles. We use a simple-point-charge/extended (SPC/E) water model with particle-mesh Ewald electrostatics treatment. This model provides a very small slip and a more realistic representation of the molecular physics than Lennards-Jones models. The Cahn-Hilliard phase-field model and the Volume-of-Fluid model are calibrated against the drop displacement from MD reference data. It is demonstrated that the calibrated continuum models can accurately capture droplet displacement and droplet breakup for different capillary numbers and contact angles. However, we also observe differences between continuum and atomistic simulations in describing the transient and unsteady droplet behavior, in particular, close to dynamical wetting transitions. The molecular dynamics of the sheared droplet provide insight of the line friction experienced by the advancing and receding contact lines and evidence of large-scale temporal "stick-slip" like oscillations. The presented results will serve as a stepping stone towards developing accurate continuum models for nanoscale hydrodynamics., 45 pages, 23 figures, 4 tables, 1 supplementary PDF, 2 supplementary movies, 1 supplementary archive, accepted for publication in "Journal of Fluid Mechanics"

Liquid-infused surfaces (LIS) can reduce friction drag in both laminar and turbulent flows. However, the heat transfer properties of such multi-phase surfaces have still not been investigated to a large extent. We use numerical simulations to study conjugate heat transfer of liquid-filled grooves. It is shown that heat transfer can increase for both laminar and turbulent liquid flows due to recirculation in the surface texture. For the increase to be substantial, the thermal conductivity of the solid must be similar to the thermal conductivity of the fluids, and the recirculation in the grooves must be sufficiently strong (P\'eclet number larger than 1). The ratio of the surface cavity to the system height is an upper limit of the direct contribution from the recirculation. While this ratio can be significant for laminar flows in microchannels, it is limited for turbulent flows, where the system scale (e.g. channel height) usually is much larger than the texture height. However, heat transfer enhancement on the order of $10\%$ is observed (with a net drag reduction) in a turbulent channel flow at a friction Reynolds number $Re_\tau \approx 180$. It is shown that the turbulent convection in the bulk can be enhanced indirectly from the recirculation in the grooves., Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures

Multiscale homogenization represents a powerful tool to treat certain fluid-structure interaction problems involving porous, elastic, fibrous media. This is shown here for the case of the interacti ...

Surfaces with filamentous structures are ubiquitous in nature on many different scales, ranging from forests to micrometre-sized cilia in organs. Hairy surfaces are elastic and porous, and it is not fully understood how they modify turbulence near a wall. The interaction between hairy surfaces and turbulent flows is here investigated numerically in a turbulent channel flow configuration at friction Reynolds number $Re_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\approx 180$. We show that a filamentous bed of a given geometry can modify a turbulent flow very differently depending on the resonance frequency of the surface, which is determined by the elasticity and mass of the filaments. Filaments having resonance frequencies lower than the main frequency content of the turbulent wall-shear stress conform to slowly travelling elongated streaky structures, since they are too slow to adapt to fluid forces of higher frequencies. On the other hand, a bed consisting of stiff and low-mass filaments has a high resonance frequency and shows local regions of increased permeability, which results in large entrainment and a vast increase in drag.

A set of boundary conditions called the transpiration-resistance model (TRM) is investigated in altering near-wall turbulence. The TRM was proposed by Lacis et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 884, 2020, p. A21) as a means of representing the net effect of surface micro-textures on their overlying bulk flows. It encompasses conventional Navier-slip boundary conditions relating the streamwise and spanwise velocities to their respective shears through the slip lengths $\ell _x$ and $\ell _z$ . In addition, it features a transpiration condition accounting for the changes induced in the wall-normal velocity by expressing it in terms of variations of the wall-parallel velocity shears through the transpiration lengths $m_x$ and $m_z$ . Greater levels of drag increase occur when more transpiration takes place at the boundary plane, with turbulent transpiration being predominately coupled to the spanwise shear component for canonical near-wall turbulence. The TRM reproduces the effect of a homogeneous and structured roughness up to $k^{+}\approx 18$ , encompassing the regime of smooth-wall-like turbulence described using virtual origins (Luchini, 1996 Reducing the turbulent skin friction. In Computational Methods in Applied Sciences’ 96 (Paris, 9–13 Sept. 1996), pp. 465–470. Wiley; Ibrahim et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 915, 2021, p. A56) and slightly beyond it. The transpiration factor is defined as the product of the slip and transpiration lengths, i.e. $(m\ell )_{x,z}$ . This factor contains the compound effect of the wall-parallel velocity occurring at the boundary plane and increased permeability, both of which lead to the transport of momentum in the wall-normal direction. A linear relation between the transpiration factor and the roughness function is observed for regularly textured surfaces in the transitionally rough regime of turbulence. This shows that such effective flow quantities can be suitable measures for characterizing rough surfaces in this flow regime.

Recent developments in neural networks have shown the potential of estimating drag on irregular rough surfaces. Nevertheless, the difficulty of obtaining a large high-fidelity dataset to train neural networks is deterring their use in practical applications. In this study, we propose a transfer learning framework to model the drag on irregular rough surfaces even with a limited amount of direct numerical simulations. We show that transfer learning of empirical correlations, reported in the literature, can significantly improve the performance of neural networks for drag prediction. This is because empirical correlations include ‘approximate knowledge’ of the drag dependency in high-fidelity physics. The ‘approximate knowledge’ allows neural networks to learn the surface statistics known to affect drag more efficiently. The developed framework can be applied to applications where acquiring a large dataset is difficult but empirical correlations have been reported.

The impact of liquid drops on a rigid surface is central in cleaning, cooling and coating processes in both nature and industrial applications. However, it is not clear how details of pores, roughness and texture on the solid surface influence the initial stages of the impact dynamics. Here, we experimentally study drop impacting at low velocities onto surfaces textured with asymmetric (tilted) ridges. We define the line-friction capillary number $Ca_f={\mu_f V_0}/{\sigma}$ (where $\mu_f$, $V_0$ and $\sigma$ are the line friction, impact velocity and surface tension, respectively) as a measure of the importance of the topology of surface textures for the dynamics of droplet impact. We show that when $Ca_f \ll 1$, the contact line speed in the direction against the inclination of the ridges is set by line-friction, whereas in the direction with inclination the contact line is pinned at acute corners of the ridge. When $Ca_f \sim 1$, the pinning is only temporary until the liquid-vapor interface reaches to the next ridge where a new contact line is formed. Finally, when $Ca_f\gg 1$, the geometric details of non-smooth surfaces play little role., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, under consideration for Physical Review Fluids. Revised February 04 2021

International audience; Lubrication forces depend to a high degree on elasticity, texture, charge, chemistry, and temperature of the interacting surfaces. Therefore, by appropriately designing surface properties, we may tailor lubrication forces to reduce friction, adhesion and wear between sliding surfaces or control repulsion, assembly, and collision of interacting particles. Here, we show that variations of slippage on one of the contacting surfaces induce a lift force. We demonstrate the consequences of this force on the mobility of a cylinder traveling near a wall and show the emergence of particle oscillation and migration that would not otherwise occur in the Stokes flow regime.Our study has implications for understanding how inhomogeneous biological interfaces interact with their environment; it also reveals a new method of patterning surfaces for controlling the motion of nearby particles.

Microstructured surfaces that control the direction of liquid transport are not only ubiquitous in nature, but they are also central to technological processes such as fog/water harvesting, oil-water separation, and surface lubrication. However, a fundamental understanding of the initial wetting dynamics of liquids spreading on such surfaces is lacking. Here, we show that three regimes govern microstructured surface wetting on short time scales: spread, stick, and contact line leaping. The latter involves establishing a new contact line downstream of the wetting front as the liquid leaps over specific sections of the solid surface. Experimental and numerical investigations reveal how different regimes emerge in different flow directions during wetting of periodic asymmetrically microstructured surfaces. These insights improve our understanding of rapid wetting in droplet impact, splashing, and wetting of vibrating surfaces and may contribute to advances in designing structured surfaces for the mentioned applications., 9 pages, 5 figures, under consideration for Soft Matter

We derive a homogenized macroscopic model for fluid flows over ordered homogeneous porous surfaces. The unconfined free-flow is described by the Navier-Stokes equation, and the Darcy equation governs the seepage flow within the porous domain. Boundary conditions that accurately capture mass and momentum transport at the contact surface between these two domains are derived using the multiscale homogenization technique. In addition to obtaining the generalized version of the widely used Beavers-Joseph slip condition for tangential velocities, the present work provides an accurate formulation for the transpiration velocity and pressure jump at fluid-porous interfaces; these two conditions are essential for handling two- and three-dimensional flows over porous media. All the constitutive parameters appearing in the interface conditions are computed by solving a set of Stokes problems on a much smaller computational domain, making the formulations free of empirical parameters. The tensorial form of the proposed interface conditions makes it possible to handle flows over isotropic, orthotropic, and anisotropic media. A subset of interface conditions, derived for porous media, can be used to model flows over rough walls. The accuracy of the proposed macroscopic model is numerically quantified for flows over porous and rough walls by comparing the results from our homogenized model with those obtained from geometry-resolved microscopic simulations., 47 pages, 19 figures, 8 tables, Under consideration for publication in "Transport in porous media"

We present applications of modal analysis techniques to study, model, and control canonical aerodynamic flows. To illustrate how modal analysis techniques can provide physical insights in a complementary manner, we selected four fundamental examples of cylinder wakes, wall-bounded flows, airfoil wakes, and cavity flows. We also offer brief discussions on the outlook for modal analysis techniques, in light of rapid developments in data science., 37 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables

A new way of handling, simultaneously, porosity and bending resistance of a massive filament is proposed. Our strategy extends the previous methods where porosity was taken into account in the absence of bending resistance of the structure and overcomes related numerical issues. The new strategy has been exploited to investigate how porosity affects the stability of slender elastic objects exposed to a uniform stream. To understand under which conditions porosity becomes important, we propose a simple resonance mechanism between a properly defined characteristic porous time-scale and the standard characteristic hydrodynamic time-scale. The resonance condition results in a critical value for the porosity above which porosity is important for the resulting filament flapping regime, otherwise its role can be considered of little importance. Our estimation for the critical value of the porosity is in fairly good agreement with our DNS results. The computations also allow us to quantitatively establish the stabilizing role of porosity in the flapping regimes.

The surface texture of materials plays a critical role in wettability, turbulence and transport phenomena. In order to design surfaces for these applications, it is desirable to characterise non-smooth and porous materials by their ability to exchange mass and momentum with flowing fluids. While the underlying physics of the tangential (slip) velocity at a fluid-solid interface is well understood, the importance and treatment of normal (transpiration) velocity and normal stress is unclear. We show that, when slip velocity varies at an interface above the texture, a non-zero transpiration velocity arises from mass conservation. The ability of a given surface texture to accommodate for a normal velocity of this kind is quantified by a transpiration length. We further demonstrate that normal momentum transfer gives rise to a pressure jump. For a porous material, the pressure jump can be characterised by so called resistance coefficients. By solving five Stokes problems, the introduced measures of slip, transpiration and resistance can be determined for any anisotropic non-smooth surface consisting of regularly repeating geometric patterns. The proposed conditions are a subset of effective boundary conditions derived from formal multi-scale expansion. We validate and demonstrate the physical significance of the effective conditions on two canonical problems -- a lid-driven cavity and a turbulent channel flow, both with non-smooth bottom surfaces., Comment: 31 page, 12 figures, 5 tables, under consideration for publication in Journal of Fluid Mechanics

Motivated by the relevance of edge state solutions as mediators of transition, we use direct numerical simulations to study the effect of spatially non-uniform viscosity on their energy and stability in minimal channel flows. What we seek is a theoretical support rooted in a fully non-linear framework that explains the modified threshold for transition to turbulence in flows with temperature-dependent viscosity. Consistently over a range of subcritical Reynolds numbers, we find that decreasing viscosity away from the walls weakens the streamwise streaks and the vortical structures responsible for their regeneration. The entire self-sustained cycle of the edge state is maintained on a lower kinetic energy level with a smaller driving force, compared to a flow with constant viscosity. Increasing viscosity away from the walls has the opposite effect. In both cases, the effect is proportional to the strength of the viscosity gradient. The results presented highlight a local shift in the state space of the position of the edge state relative to the laminar attractor with the consequent modulation of its basin of attraction in the proximity of the edge state and of the surrounding manifold. The implication is that the threshold for transition is reduced for perturbations evolving in the neighbourhood of the edge state in case viscosity decreases away from the walls, and vice versa., 25 pages, 21 figures. Accepted for publication on the Journal of Fluid Mechanics

Active linear control is applied to delay the onset of laminar–turbulent transition in the boundary layer over a flat plate. The analysis is carried out by numerical simulations of the nonlinear, transitional regime. A three-dimensional, localized initial condition triggering Tollmien–Schlichting waves of finite amplitude is used to numerically simulate the transition to turbulence. Linear quadratic Gaussian controllers based on reduced-order models of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations are designed, where the wall sensors and the actuators are localized in space. A parametric analysis is carried out in the nonlinear regime, for different disturbance amplitudes, by investigating the effects of the actuation on the flow due to different distributions of the localized actuators along the spanwise direction, different sizes of the actuators and the effort of the controllers. We identify the range of parameters where the controllers are effective and highlight the limits of the device for high amplitudes and strong control action. Despite the fully linear control approach, it is shown that the device is effective in delaying the onset of laminar–turbulent transition in the presence of packets characterized by amplitudes $a\approx 1\hspace{0.167em} \% $ of the free stream velocity at the actuator location. Up to these amplitudes, it is found that a proper choice of the actuators positively affects the performance of the controller. For a transitional case, $a\approx 0. 20\hspace{0.167em} \% $, we show a transition delay of $\Delta {\mathit{Re}}_{x} = 3. 0\times 1{0}^{5} $.

The Koopman operator provides a powerful way of analysing nonlinear flow dynamics using linear techniques. The operator defines how observables evolve in time along a nonlinear flow trajectory. In this paper, we perform a Koopman analysis of the first Hopf bifurcation of the flow past a circular cylinder. First, we decompose the flow into a sequence of Koopman modes, where each mode evolves in time with one single frequency/growth rate and amplitude/phase, corresponding to the complex eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Koopman operator, respectively. The analytical construction of these modes shows how the amplitudes and phases of nonlinear global modes oscillating with the vortex shedding frequency or its harmonics evolve as the flow develops and later sustains self-excited oscillations. Second, we compute the dynamic modes using the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) algorithm, which fits a linear combination of exponential terms to a sequence of snapshots spaced equally in time. It is shown that under certain conditions the DMD algorithm approximates Koopman modes, and hence provides a viable method to decompose the flow into saturated and transient oscillatory modes. Finally, the relevance of the analysis to frequency selection, global modes and shift modes is discussed.

The majority of investigations characterizing the motion of single or multiple particles in fluid flows consider canonical body shapes, such as spheres, cylinders, discs, etc. However, protrusions on bodies -- being either as surface imperfections or appendages that serve a function -- are ubiquitous in both nature and applications. In this work, we characterize how the dynamics of a sphere with an axis-symmetric wake is modified in the presence of thin three-dimensional elliptic-shaped protrusions. By investigating a wide range of three-dimensional appendages with different aspect ratios and lengths, we clearly show that the sphere with an appendage may robustly undergo an inverted-pendulum-like (IPL) instability. This means that the position of the appendage placed behind the sphere and aligned with the free-stream direction is unstable, in a similar way that an inverted pendulum is unstable under gravity. Due to this instability, non-trivial forces are generated on the body, leading to turn and drift, if the body is free to fall under gravity. Moreover, we identify the aspect ratio and length of the appendage that induces the largest side force on the sphere, and therefore also the largest drift for a freely falling body. Finally, we explain the physical mechanisms behind these observations in the context of the IPL instability, i.e., the balance between surface area of the appendage exposed to reversed flow in the wake and the surface area of the appendage exposed to fast free-stream flow., 16 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, under consideration for publication in Phys. Rev. Fluids; revision

This manuscript demonstrates the first successful application of the delayed-x-LMS (dxLMS) control algorithm for TS-wave cancelation. Active wave cancelation of two-dimensional broad-band Tollmien- ...

This paper considers the analysis and control of fluid flows using tools from dynamical systems and control theory. The employed tools are derived from the spectral analysis of various linear operators associated with the Navier–Stokes equations. Spectral decomposition of the linearized Navier-Stokes operator, the Koopman operator, the spatial correlation operator and the Hankel operator provide a means to gain physical insight into the dynamics of complex flows and enables the construction of low-dimensional models suitable for control design. Since the discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations often leads to very large-scale dynamical systems, matrix-free and in some cases iterative techniques have to be employed to solve the eigenvalue problem. The common theme of the numerical algorithms is the use of direct numerical simulations. The theory and the algorithms are exemplified on flow over a flat plate and a jet in crossflow, as prototypes for the laminar-turbulent transition and three-dimensional vortex shedding.

We study direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a jet in cross-flow at low values of the jet-to-cross-flow velocity ratio$R$. We observe that, as the ratio$R$increases, the flow evolves from simple periodic vortex shedding (a limit cycle) to more complicated quasi-periodic behaviour, before finally becoming turbulent, as seen in the simulation of Bagheriet al. (J. Fluid. Mech., vol. 624, 2009b, pp. 33–44). The value of$R$at which the first bifurcation occurs for our numerical set-up is found, and shedding of hairpin vortices characteristic of a shear layer instability is observed. We focus on this first bifurcation, and find that a global linear stability analysis predicts well the frequency and initial growth rate of the nonlinear DNS at the critical value of$R$and that good qualitative predictions about the dynamics can still be made at slightly higher values of$R$where multiple unstable eigenmodes are present. In addition, we compute the adjoint global eigenmodes, and find that the overlap of the direct and the adjoint eigenmode, also known as a ‘wavemaker’, provides evidence that the source of the first instability lies in the shear layer just downstream of the jet.

The attenuation of three-dimensional wavepackets of streaks and Tollmien–Schlichting (TS) waves in a transitional boundary layer using feedback control is investigated numerically. Arrays of localized sensors and actuators (about 10–20) with compact spatial support are distributed near the rigid wall equidistantly along the spanwise direction and connected to a low-dimensional (r = 60) linear quadratic Gaussian controller. The control objective is to minimize the disturbance energy in a domain spanned by a number of proper orthogonal decomposition modes. The feedback controller is based on a reduced-order model of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations including the inputs and outputs, computed using a snapshot-based balanced truncation method. To account for the different temporal and spatial behaviour of the two main instabilities of boundary-layer flows, we design two controllers. We demonstrate that the two controllers reduce the energy growth of both TS wavepackets and streak packets substantially and efficiently, using relatively few sensors and actuators. The robustness of the controller is investigated by varying the number of actuators and sensors, the Reynolds number and the pressure gradient. This work constitutes the first experimentally feasible simulation-based control design using localized sensing and acting devices in conjunction with linear control theory in a three-dimensional setting.

A jet in crossflow with an inflow ratio of 3, based on the maximum velocity of the parabolic jet profile, is studied numerically. The jet is modeled as an inhomogeneous boundary condition at the crossflow wall. We find two fundamental frequencies, pertaining to self-sustained oscillations in the flow, using full nonlinear direct numerical simulation (DNS) as well as a modal decomposition into global linear eigenmodes and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) modes; a high frequency which is characteristic for the shear-layer vortices and the upright vortices in the jet wake, and a low frequency which is dominant in the region downstream of the jet orifice. Both frequencies can be related to a region of reversed flow downstream of the jet orifice. This region is observed to oscillate predominantly in the wall-normal direction with the high frequency, and in the spanwise direction with the low frequency. Moreover, the steady-state solution of the governing Navier–Stokes equations clearly shows the horseshoe vortices and the corresponding wall vortices further downstream, and the emergence of a distinct counter-rotating vortex pair high in the free stream. It is thus found that neither the inclusion of the jet pipe nor unsteadiness is necessary to generate the characteristic counter-rotating vortex pair.

Reduced-order models of the nonlinear complex Ginzburg-Landau (CGL) equation are computed using a nonlinear generalization of balanced truncation. The method involves Galerkin projection of the nonlinear dynamics onto modes determined by balanced truncation of a linearized system and is compared to a standard method using projection onto proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) modes computed from snapshots of nonlinear simulations. It is found that the nonlinear reduced- order models obtained using modes from linear balanced truncation capture very well the transient dynamics of the CGL equation and outperform POD models; i.e., a higher number of POD modes than linear balancing modes is typically necessary in order to capture the dynamics of the original system correctly. In addition, we find that the performance of POD models compares well to that of balanced truncation models when the degree of nonnormality in the system, in this case determined by the streamwise extent of a disturbance amplification region, is lower. Our findings therefore indicate that the superior performance of balanced truncation compared to POD/Galerkin models in capturing the input/output dynamics of linear systems extends to the case of a nonlinear system, both for the case of significant transient growth, which represents a basic model of boundary layer instabilities, and for a limit cycle case that represents a basic model of vortex shedding past a cylinder.

We present a technique for describing the global behaviour of complex nonlinear flows by decomposing the flow into modes determined from spectral analysis of the Koopman operator, an infinite-dimensional linear operator associated with the full nonlinear system. These modes, referred to as Koopman modes, are associated with a particular observable, and may be determined directly from data (either numerical or experimental) using a variant of a standard Arnoldi method. They have an associated temporal frequency and growth rate and may be viewed as a nonlinear generalization of global eigenmodes of a linearized system. They provide an alternative to proper orthogonal decomposition, and in the case of periodic data the Koopman modes reduce to a discrete temporal Fourier transform. The Arnoldi method used for computations is identical to the dynamic mode decomposition recently proposed by Schmid & Sesterhenn (Sixty-First Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, 2008), so dynamic mode decomposition can be thought of as an algorithm for finding Koopman modes. We illustrate the method on an example of a jet in crossflow, and show that the method captures the dominant frequencies and elucidates the associated spatial structures.

This paper presents matrix-free methods for the stability analysis and control design of high-dimensional systems arising from the discretized linearized Navier-Stokes equations. The methods are ap ...

International audience; A linear stability analysis shows that the jet in crossflow is characterized by self-sustained global oscillations for a jet-to-crossflow velocity ratio of 3. A fully three-dimensional unstable steady-state solution and its associated global eigenmodes are computed by direct numerical simulations and iterative eigenvalue routines. The steady flow, obtained by means of selective frequency damping, consists mainly of a (steady) counter-rotating vortex pair (CVP) in the far field and horseshoe-shaped vortices close to the wall. High-frequency unstable global eigenmodes associated with shear-layer instabilities on the CVP and low-frequency modes associated with shedding vortices in the wake of the jet are identified. Furthermore, different spanwise symmetries of the global modes are discussed. This work constitutes the first simulation-based global stability analysis of a fully three-dimensional base flow. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.

The dynamics and control of two-dimensional disturbances in the spatially evolving boundary layer on a flat plate are investigated from an input–output viewpoint. A set-up of spatially localized inputs (external disturbances and actuators) and outputs (objective functions and sensors) is introduced for the control design of convectively unstable flow configurations. From the linearized Navier–Stokes equations with the inputs and outputs, controllable, observable and balanced modes are extracted using the snapshot method. A balanced reduced-order model (ROM) is constructed and shown to capture the input–output behaviour of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations. This model is finally used to design a2-feedback controller to suppress the growth of two-dimensional perturbations inside the boundary layer.

Dispersion of low-density rigid particles with complex geometries is ubiquitous in both natural and industrial environments. We show that while explicit methods for coupling the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and Newton's equations of motion are often sufficient to solve for the motion of cylindrical particles with low density ratios, for more complex particles - such as a body with a protrusion - they become unstable. We present an implicit formulation of the coupling between rigid body dynamics and fluid dynamics within the framework of the immersed boundary projection method. Similarly to previous work on this method, the resulting matrix equation in the present approach is solved using a block-LU decomposition. Each step of the block-LU decomposition is modified to incorporate the rigid body dynamics. We show that our method achieves second-order accuracy in space and first-order in time (third-order for practical settings), only with a small additional computational cost to the original method. Our implicit coupling yields stable solution for density ratios as low as $10^{-4}$. We also consider the influence of fictitious fluid located inside the rigid bodies on the accuracy and stability of our method., Article has undergone final revision stage, minor adjustments in text, fixed citations

This experimental study reports on the behavior of a filament attached to the rear of a three-dimensional cylinder. The axis of the cylinder is placed normal to a uniform incoming flow, and the fil ...

In boundary-layer flows, one may reduce skin-friction drag by delaying the onset of laminar-to-turbulent transition via the attenuation of small-amplitude Tollmien–Schlichting (TS) waves. In this work, we use numerical simulations and experiments to compare the robustness of adaptive and model-based techniques for reducing the growth of two-dimensional TS disturbances. In numerical simulations, the optimal linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) regulator shows the best performance under the conditions it was designed for. However, it is found that the performance deteriorates linearly with the drift of the Reynolds number from its nominal value. As a result, an order-of-magnitude loss of performance is observed when applying the computation-based LQG controller in wind-tunnel experiments. In contrast, it is shown that the adaptive filtered-X least-mean-squares (FXLMS) algorithm is able to maintain an essentially constant performance for significant deviations of the nominal values of the disturbance amplitude and Reynolds number.

Despite the ubiquity of fluid flows interacting with porous and elastic materials, we lack a validated non-empirical macroscale method for characterizing the flow over and through a poroelastic medium. We propose a computational tool to describe such configurations by deriving and validating a continuum model for the poroelastic bed and its interface with the above free fluid. We show that, using stress continuity condition and slip velocity condition at the interface, the effective model captures the effects of small changes in the microstructure anisotropy correctly and predicts the overall behaviour in a physically consistent and controllable manner. Moreover, we show that the performance of the effective model is accurate by validating with fully microscopic resolved simulations. The proposed computational tool can be used in investigations in a wide range of fields, including mechanical engineering, bio-engineering and geophysics., Main paper: 28 pages, 14 figures; Supplementary appendicies: 7 pages; under consideration for publication in Roy. Soc. Proc. A

Plants and animals use plumes, barbs, tails, feathers, hairs and fins to aid locomotion. Many of these appendages are not actively controlled, instead they have to interact passively with the surrounding fluid to generate motion. Here, we use theory, experiments and numerical simulations to show that an object with a protrusion in a separated flow drifts sideways by exploiting a symmetry-breaking instability similar to the instability of an inverted pendulum. Our model explains why the straight position of an appendage in a fluid flow is unstable and how it stabilizes either to the left or right of the incoming flow direction. It is plausible that organisms with appendages in a separated flow use this newly discovered mechanism for locomotion; examples include the drift of plumed seeds without wind and the passive reorientation of motile animals., Passive mechanisms without energy input are the only way for non-motile organisms to disperse in fluids. Here, the authors use the analogue of the inverted pendulum motion upon gravity to explain the passive drift of a body with a protrusion to the sides of an incoming fluid stream.

Research on active control for the delay of laminar-turbulent transition in boundary layers has made a significant progress in the last two decades, but the employed strategies have been many and dispersed. Using one framework, we review model-based techniques, such as linear-quadratic regulators, and model-free adaptive methods, such as least-mean square filters. The former are supported by a elegant and powerful theoretical basis, whereas the latter may provide a more practical approach in the presence of complex disturbance environments, that are difficult to model. We compare the methods with a particular focus on efficiency, practicability and robustness to uncertainties. Each step is exemplified on the one-dimensional linearized Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, that shows many similarities with the initial linear stages of the transition process of the flow over a flat plate. Also, the source code for the examples are provided., MATLAB\copyright code available (url link in the paper) Controllability/Observability section had been added

We use linear control theory to construct an output feedback controller for the attenuation of small-amplitude Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) wavepackets in a flat-plate boundary layer.We distribute evenly in the spanwise direction up to 72 localized objects near the wall (18 disturbances sources, 18 actuators, 18 estimation sensors and 18 objective sensors). In a fully three-dimensional configuration,the interconnection between inputs and outputs becomes quickly unfeasible when the number of actuators and sensors increases in the spanswise direction. The objective of this work is to understand how an efficient controller may be designed by connecting only a subset of the actuators to sensors, thereby reducing the complexity of the controller, without comprising the efficiency. We find that using a semi-decentralized approach - where small control units consisting of 3 estimation sensors connected to 3 actuators are replicated 6 times along the spanwise direction - results only in a 11% reduction of control performance. Our results reveal that the best performance is obtained for a control unit which (i) is sufficiently wide to account for the full spanwise scale of the wavepacket when it reaches the actuators and (ii) is designed to account for the perturbations which are coming from the lateral sides (crosstalk) of the estimation sensors. We have also found that the influence of crosstalk is not as essential as the spreading effect., Comment: 17 pages

Elastic filamentous structures found on swimming and flying organisms are versatile in function, rendering their precise contribution to locomotion difficult to assess. We show in this Letter that a single passive filament hinged on the rear of a bluff body placed in a stream can generate a net lift force without increasing the mean drag force on the body. This is a consequence of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the filament's flapping dynamics. The phenomenon is related to a resonance between the frequency associated with the von Kármán vortex street developing behind the bluff body and the natural frequency of the free bending vibrations of the filament. QC 20121122

This review gives an account of recent research efforts to use feedback control for the delay of laminar–turbulent transition in wall-bounded shear flows. The emphasis is on reducing the growth of small-amplitude disturbances in the boundary layer using numerical simulations and a linear control approach. Starting with the application of classical control theory to two-dimensional perturbations developing in spatially invariant flows, flow control based on control theory has progressed towards more realistic three-dimensional, spatially inhomogeneous flow configurations with localized sensing/actuation. The development of low-dimensional models of the Navier–Stokes equations has played a key role in this progress. Moreover, shortcomings and future challenges, as well as recent experimental advances in this multi-disciplinary field, are discussed.

International audience; The nonlinear stability of laminar sinuously bent streaks is studied for the plane Couette flow at Re=500 in a nearly minimal box and for the Blasius boundary layer at Re_delta=700. The initial perturbations are nonlinearly saturated streamwise streaks of amplitude AU perturbed with sinuous perturbations of amplitude AW. The local boundary of the basin of attraction of the linearly stable laminar flow is computed by bisection and projected in the AU-AW plane providing a well defined critical curve. Different streak transition scenarios are seen to correspond to different regions of the critical curve. The modal instability of the streaks is responsible for transition for AU~25%-27% for the considered flows, where sinuous perturbations of amplitude below AW ~ % 1%-2% are sufficient to counteract the streak viscous dissipation and induce breakdown. The critical amplitude of the sinuous perturbations increases when the streamwise streak amplitude is decreased. With secondary perturbations amplitude A W % 4%, breakdown is induced on stable streamwise streaks with AU = 13%, following the secondary transient growth scenario first examined by Schoppa and Hussain [J. Fluid Mech. 453, 57 (2002)]. A cross-over, where the critical amplitude of the sinuous perturbation becomes larger than the amplitude of streamwise streaks, is observed for streaks of small amplitude AU < 5%-6%. In this case, the transition is induced by an initial transient amplification of streamwise vortices, forced by the decaying sinuous mode. This is followed by the growth of the streaks and final breakdown. The shape of the critical AU-AW curve is very similar for Couette and boundary layer flows and seems to be relatively insensitive to the nature of the edge states on the basin boundary. The shape of this critical curve indicates that the stability of streamwise streaks should always be assessed in terms of both the streak amplitude and the amplitude of spanwise velocity perturbations.

We have produced a fluid dynamics video with data from Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of a jet in crossflow at several low values of the velocity inflow ratio R. We show that, as the velocity ratio R increases, the flow evolves from simple periodic vortex shedding (a limit cycle) to more complicated quasi-periodic behavior, before finally exhibiting asymmetric chaotic motion. We also perform a stability analysis just above the first bifurcation, where R is the bifurcation parameter. Using the overlap of the direct and the adjoint eigenmodes, we confirm that the first instability arises in the shear layer downstream of the jet orifice on the boundary of the backflow region just behind the jet., Comment: Two fluid dynamics videos, high-resolution 1024x768 (~80MB), and low resolution 320x240 (~10MB), included in the ancillary files

Using a number of localized sensors and actuators, a feedback controller is designed in order to reduce the growth of three-dimensional disturbances in the flat-plate boundary layer. A reduced-order model of the input-output system (composed of the linearized Navier–Stokes equations including inputs and outputs) is computed by projection onto a number of balanced truncation modes. It is shown that a model with 50 degrees of freedom captures the input-output behavior of the high-dimensional (n ~ 107) system. The controller is based on a classical LQG scheme with a row of three sensors in the spanwise direction connected to a row of three actuators further downstream. The controller minimizes the perturbation energy in a spatial region defined by a number of (objective) functions.