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Stability of a stratified fluid with a vertically moving sidewall

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

FRANÇOIS BLANCHETTE
Affiliation:
Sch. Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, 5200 N. Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343, USA
THOMAS PEACOCK
Affiliation:
Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
RÉMI COUSIN
Affiliation:
Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Abstract

We present the results of a combined theoretical and experimental study of the stability of a uniformly stratified fluid bounded by a sidewall moving vertically with constant velocity. This arrangement is perhaps the simplest in which boundary effects can drive instability and, potentially, layering in a stratified fluid. Our investigations reveal that for a given stratification and diffusivity of the stratifying agent, the sidewall boundary-layer flow becomes linearly unstable when the wall velocity exceeds a critical value. The onset of instability is clearly observed in the experiments, and there is good quantitative agreement with some predictions of the linear stability analysis.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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