J. P. Pascal

Instability in gravity-driven flow over uneven surfaces

We consider the gravity-driven laminar flow of a shallow fluid layer down an uneven incline with the principal objective of investigating the effect of bottom topography and surface tension on the stability of the flow. The equations of motion are approximations to the Navier–Stokes equations which exploit the assumed relative shallowness of the fluid layer. Included in these equations are diffusive terms that are second order relative to the shallowness parameter. These terms, while small in magnitude, represent an important dependence of the flow dynamics on the variation in bottom topography and play a significant role in theoretically capturing important aspects of the flow. Some of the second-order terms include normal shear contributions, while others lead to a nonhydrostatic pressure distribution. The explicit dependence on the cross-stream coordinate is eliminated from the equations of motion by means of a weighted residual approach. The resulting mathematical formulation constitutes an extension ...

Gravity-driven flow over heated, porous, wavy surfaces

The method of weighted residuals for thin film flow down an inclined plane is extended to include the effects of bottom waviness, heating, and permeability in this study. A bottom slip condition is used to account for permeability and a constant temperature bottom boundary condition is applied. A weighted residual model (WRM) is derived and used to predict the combined effects of bottom waviness, heating, and permeability on the stability of the flow. In the absence of bottom topography, the results are compared to theoretical predictions from the corresponding Benney equation and also to existing Orr-Sommerfeld predictions. The excellent agreement found indicates that the model does faithfully predict the theoretical critical Reynolds number, which accounts for heating and permeability, and these effects are found to destabilize the flow. Floquet theory is used to investigate how bottom waviness influences the stability of the flow. Finally, numerical simulations of the model equations are also conducted...

Sediment Transport and Deposition from a Two‐layer Fluid Model of Gravity Currents on Sloping Bottoms

This article reports on a theoretical and numerical study of noneroding turbulent gravity currents moving down mildly inclined surfaces while depositing sediment. These flows are modeled by means of two-layer fluid systems appropriately modified to account for the presence of a sloping bottom and suspended sediment in the lower layer. A detailed scaling argument shows that when the density of the interstitial fluid is slightly greater than that of the ambient and the suspension is such that its volume fraction is of the order of the aspect ratio squared, for low aspect ratio flows a two-layer shallow-water theory is applicable. In this theory there is a decoupling of particle and flow dynamics. In contrast, however, when the densities of interstitial and ambient fluids are equal, so that it is the presence of the particles alone that drives the flow, we find that a consistent shallow-water theory is impossible no matter how small the aspect ratio or the initial volume fraction occupied by the particles. Our two-layer shallow-water formulation is employed to investigate the downstream evolution of flow and depositional characteristics for sloping bottoms. This investigation uncovers a new phenomenon in the formation of a rear compressive zone giving rise to shock formation in the post-end-wall-separation phase of the particle-bearing gravity flow. This separation of flow from the end wall in these fixed volume releases differs from what has been observed on horizontal surfaces where the flow always remains in contact with the end wall.

Film flow over heated wavy inclined surfaces

The two-dimensional problem of gravity-driven laminar flow of a thin layer of fluid down a heated wavy inclined surface is discussed. The coupled effect of bottom topography, variable surface tension and heating has been investigated both analytically and numerically. A stability analysis is conducted while nonlinear simulations are used to validate the stability predictions and also to study thermocapillary effects. The governing equations are based on the Navier-Stokes equations for a thin fluid layer with the cross-stream dependence eliminated by means of a weighted residual technique. Comparisons with experimental data and direct numerical simulations have been carried out and the agreement is good. New interesting results regarding the combined role of surface tension and sinusoidal topography on the stability of the flow are presented. The influence of heating and the Marangoni effect are also deduced.

Nonhydraulic effects in particle-driven gravity currents in deep surroundings

In this article, we present an approach to modeling the flow of particle-driven gravity currents produced by the sudden release of well-mixed, fixed-volume suspensions into deep surroundings. Our model accounts for the initial turbulent energy of mixing in the release volume, characteristic of the classical lock-release experiments, as well as the spatiotemporal variability in the driving buoyancy forces attributable to particle settling. We show that, in contrast to compositionally driven flows, particle-driven flows cannot be described consistently in terms of shallow water theory. Specifically, we show that the presence of particles in the flow dynamics produces significant horizontal velocity shear, thereby changing the flow configuration in important ways from flows assumed to be governed by the shallow water equations. These new flow properties are calculated and contrasted with flow properties derived on the basis of the shallow water equations to show that the shallow water analysis misses dynamical features of the flow. We also show that our model provides significant improvement over the previous shallow water-based models in predicting the experimentally determined deposition patterns associated with the lock-release experiments.

Modeling Sediment Deposition Patterns Arising From Suddenly Released Fixed‐Volume Turbulent Suspensions

Models presented in several recent papers [1–3] dealing with particle transport by, and deposition from, bottom gravity currents produced by the sudden release of dilute, well-mixed fixed-volume suspensions have been relatively successful in duplicating the experimentally observed long-time, distal, areal density of the deposit on a rigid horizontal bottom. These models, however, fail in their ability to capture the experimentally observed proximal pattern of the areal density with its pronounced dip in the region initially occupied by the well-mixed suspension and its equally pronounced local maximum at roughly the one-third point of the total reach of the deposit. The central feature of the models employed in [1–3] is that the particles are always assumed to be vertically well-mixed by fluid turbulence and to settle out through the bottom viscous sublayer with the Stokes settling velocity for a fluid at rest with no re-entrainment of particles from the floor of the tank. Because this process is assumed from the outset in the models of [1–3], the numerical simulations for a fixed-volume release will not take into account the actual experimental conditions that prevail at the time of release of a well-mixed fixed-volume suspension. That is, owing to the vigorous stirring that produces the well-mixed suspension, the release volume will initially possess greater turbulent energy than does an unstirred release volume, which may only acquire turbulent energy as a result of its motion after release through various instability mechanisms. The eddy motion in the imposed fluid turbulence reduces the particle settling rates from the values that would be observed in an unstirred release volume possessing zero initial turbulent energy. We here develop a model for particle bearing gravity flows initiated by the sudden release of a fixed-volume suspension that takes into account the initial turbulent energy of mixing in the release volume by means of a modified settling velocity that, over a time scale characteristic of turbulent energy decay, approaches the full Stokes settling velocity. Thereafter, in the flow regime, we assume that the turbulence persists and, in accord with current understanding concerning the mechanics of dense underflows, that this turbulence is most intense in the wall region at the bottom of the flow and relatively coarse and on the verge of collapse (see [22]) at the top of the flow where the density contrast is compositionally maintained. We capture this behavior by specifying a “shape function” that is based upon experimental observations and provides for vertical structure in the volume fraction of particles present in the flow. The assumption of vertically well-mixed particle suspensions employed in [1–5] corresponds to a constant shape function equal to unity. Combining these two refinements concerning the settling velocity and vertical structure of the volume fraction of particles into the conservation law for particles and coupling this with the fluid equations for a two-layer system, we find that our results for areal density of deposits from sudden releases of fixed-volume suspensions are in excellent qualitative agreement with the experimentally determined areal densities of deposit as reported in [1, 3, 6]. In particular, our model does what none of the other models do in that it captures and explains the proximal depression in the areal density of deposit.

Intrusive gravity currents

Intrusive gravity currents arise when a fluid of intermediate density intrudes into an ambient fluid. These intrusions may occur in both natural and human-made settings and may be the result of a sudden release of a fixed volume of fluid or the steady or time-dependent injection of such a fluid. In this article we analytically and numerically analyze intrusive gravity currents arising both from the sudden release of a fixed volume and the steady injection of fluid having a density that is intermediate between the densities of an upper layer bounded by a free surface and a heavier lower layer resting on a flat bottom. For the physical problems of interest we assume that the dynamics of the flow are dominated by a balance between inertial and buoyancy forces with viscous forces being negligible. The three-layer shallow-water equations used to model the two-dimensional flow regime include the effects of the surrounding fluid on the intrusive gravity current. These effects become more pronounced as the fraction of the total depth occupied by the intrusive current increases. To obtain some analytical information concerning the factors effecting bore formation we further reduce the complexity of our three-layer model by assuming small density differences among the different layers. This reduces the model equations from a 6×6 to a 4×4 system. The limit of applicability of this weakly stratified model for various ranges of density differences is examined numerically. Numerical results, in most instances, are obtained using MacCormacks method. It is found that the intrusive gravity current displays a wide range of flow behavior and that this behavior is a strong function of the fractional depth occupied by the release volume and any asymmetries in the density differences among the various layers. For example, in the initially symmetric sudden release problem it is found that an interior bore does not form when the fractional depth of the release volume is equal to or less than 50% of the total depth. The numerical simulations of fixed-volume releases of the intermediate layer for various density and initial depth ratios demonstrate that the intermediate layer quickly slumps from any isostatically uncompensated state to its Archimedean level thereby creating a wave of opposite sign ahead of the intrusion on the interface between the upper and lower layers. Similarity solutions are obtained for several cases that include both steady injection and sudden releases and these are in agreement with the numerical solutions of the shallow-water equations. The 4×4 weak stratification system is also subjected to a wavefront analysis to determine conditions for the initiation of leading-edge bores. These results also appear to be in agreement with numerical solutions of the shallow-water equations.

Instability of a binary liquid film flowing down a slippery heated plate

In this paper, we study the stability of a binary liquid film flowing down a heated slippery inclined surface. It is assumed that the heating induces concentration differences in the liquid mixture (Soret effect), which together with the differences in temperature affects the surface tension. A mathematical model is constructed by coupling the Navier-Stokes equations governing the flow with equations for the concentration and temperature. A Navier slip condition is applied at the liquid-solid interface. We carry out a linear stability analysis in order to obtain the critical conditions for the onset of instability. We use a Chebyshev spectral collocation method to obtain numerical solutions to the resulting Orr-Sommerfeld-type equations. We also obtain an asymptotic solution that yields an expression for the state of neutral stability of long perturbations as a function of the parameters controlling the problem. A weighted residual approximation is employed to derive a reduced model that is used to analys...

The effects of variable fluid properties on thin film stability

A theoretical investigation has been conducted to study the impact of variable fluid properties on the stability of gravity-driven flow of a thin film down a heated incline. The incline is maintained at a uniform temperature which exceeds the temperature of the ambient gas above the fluid and is thus responsible for heating the thin fluid layer. The variable fluid properties are allowed to vary linearly with temperature. It is assumed that long-wave perturbations are most unstable. Based on this, a stability analysis was carried out whereby the governing linearized perturbation equations were expanded in powers of the wavenumber which is a small parameter. New interesting results illustrating how the critical Reynolds number and perturbation phase speed depend on the various dimensionless parameters have been obtained.

The effects of density extremum and rotation on the onset of thermal instability

This paper addresses the onset of Be´nard convection on a rotating horizontally confined layer of water near the temperature of maximum density that is heated from below. A quadratic relation between temperature and density is assumed near the density extremum. A linear stability analysis is employed to determine the critical conditions for the onset of thermal instability. The resulting eigenvalue problem is numerically solved by expanding the amplitudes of the temperature and velocity perturbations in a truncated eigenfunction and power series. The validity of the principle of exchange of stabilities is proved analytically for a certain case and numerically investigated in general. Plots of the marginal stability curves as well as the variation of the critical Rayleigh number with other dimensionless parameters which naturally arise in the problem are also presented and discussed.