The generation and growth of small water waves by a turbulent wind has been investigated in a laboratory channel. The evolution of these oscillations with fetch was traced from their inception with amplitudes in the micron range under conditions of steady air flow. The experiments revealed that the waves are generated at all air velocities in small bursts consisting of groups of waves of nearly constant frequency. After travelling for some distance downstream, these wavelets attain sufficient amplitude to become visible. For this condition, a wind speed critical to raise waves is well defined. After the first wavelets appear, two new stages of growth are identified at longer fetches if the air speed remains unchanged. In the first of these, the wave component associated with the spectral peak grows faster with fetch than any other part of the wave spectrum of the initial waves until its amplitude attains an upper limit consistent with Phillips's equilibrium range, which appears to be universal for wind waves on any body of water. If the air flow is not changed, then the frequency of this dominant wave remains constant with fetch up to equilibrium. This frequency tends to decrease, however, with increasing wind shear on the water. In the second stage of growth, only the energy of wave components with spectral densities lower than the equilibrium limit tend to increase with fetch so that the wave spectrum is maintained near equilibrium in the high-frequency range of the spectrum.

The origin of the first waves and the rate of their subsequent growth was examined in the light of possible generating mechanisms. There was no indication that they were produced by direct interaction of the water surface with the air turbulence. Neither could any significant feedback of the waves into the turbulence structure be detected. The growth of the waves was found to be in better agreement with theoretical predictions. Under the shearing action of the wind, the first waves were found to grow exponentially. The growth rates agreed with the estimates from the viscous shearing mechanism of Miles (1962a) to a fractional error of 61% or less. A slight improvement was obtained with the viscous theory of Drake (1967) in which Miles’ model is extended to include the effect of the drift current induced by the wind in the water. Since the magnitude of the water currents observed in the tunnel is very small, this improvement is not significant.

The primary objective of this work was to study the response of gravity water waves to wind excitation and, in particular, the applicability of the Miles inviscid shear-flow theory of gravity wave growth, by conducting experiments in a laboratory wind-wave channel under conditions approximating the assumptions of the mathematical model. Mechanically generated wave profiles subjected to wind action were measured with capacitance wire sensors and wave energy was calculated at seven stations spaced at 10ft. intervals along the channel test section. Waves varied in length from about 2·5 to 6·5 ft. and maximum wind speeds ranged from 12 to 44 ft./sec. Vertical mean air velocity profiles were taken at six stations in the channel, fitted near the air-water interface with semi-logarithmic profiles, and used in a stepwise computation of theoretical wave growth. The results show that the measured wave energy growth is exponential but considerably larger than the growth predictions of Miles's theory. Derived experimental values of the phase-shifted pressure component β are greater than theoretical values by a factor varying from 1 to 10, with a mean of about 3. Wind mean velocity profiles appear to be closely logarithmic near the air-water interface. Wind-generated ripples superposed on mechanically generated waves created a rough water surface with standard deviation larger, in all cases, than the respective critical-layer thickness.

Experiments are described in which the stability of a liquid stabilized by a gradient of concentration of a solute has been investigated. In all the cases observed, convection began at marginal stability with an oscillatory motion. The boundary of stability in the (R, Rs)-plane departs somewhat from that predicted by the simplest theories; the boundary is a curve, concave to the origin, and the critical Rayleigh number is high. The total rate of transport of solute increases much more rapidly than that of heat when the oscillations begin. The motions begin in cells which are separate from one another.

A uniform electric arc column is held at rest against an imposed low-speed flow perpendicular to its length by an applied magnetic field transverse to both the arc and the flow. The situation is represented mathematically by two regions separated by an isothermal boundary, the arc periphery, across which certain gas properties change discontinuously. It is assumed that the arc has low power gradient so that the Nusselt number is small compared with unity. The Reynolds number is then small also and the methods of the theory of flow at low Reynolds number are used to obtain solutions for the temperature, magnetic field, velocity and pressure inside and outside the arc. It is found that the periphery of the arc is a circle and its radius is determined by heat transfer. The flow near the periphery, and the drag of the arc, are found to depend on a final boundary condition at the periphery, the form of which is not yet clear. Several examples of possible flow patterns are given, and it is shown that the arc may be likened to a slippery porous body for which the slipperiness and porousness are governed by the final boundary condition. The electric and magnetic characteristics of the arc are derived and shown to be amenable to examination by experiment and to empirical extension for arcs of higher power gradient.

General qualitative rules are derived for the behaviour of the volume of an ascending spherical bubble and of the gas pressure within it. Three modes of behaviour are discerned, corresponding to as many possible orderings of the relative influences of ascent velocity, gas leakage and surface tension on the volume and the pressure balance. These general results are nearly independent of the particular forms of the ascent velocity and gas exchange functions. Quantitative results are presented for the Stokes law régime.

The closure mechanism of the human aortic valve is investigated experimentally with a rigid-walled model placed in a pulsatile water-tunnel. It is shown that the valve is controlled by a fluid feed-back system incorporating a stagnation point at the downstream end of each sinus and a trapped vortex within it, and that threequarters of the valve's closure is accomplished during forward flow, requiring only very little reversed flow to seal it. The experiments are complemented by solutions of the inviscid-flow equations, based on a Hill spherical vortex model.

This paper describes a floating-element skin friction meter which has been designed for use in adverse pressure gradients. The effects of secondary forces on the element, which arise from the pressure gradient, are examined in some detail. The limitations of various methods of measuring wall shear stress are discussed and the results from the floating element device are compared with measurements taken in a two-dimensional boundary layer using Preston tubes and velocity profiles. As it is planned to use the instrument later for direct measurements of the shear stress in three-dimensional boundary layers, the relevance of the instrument to this situation is also discussed.

A theoretical study is made of the free periods of oscillation of an incompressible inviscid fluid, bounded by two rigid concentric spheres of radii a, b (a > b), and rotating with angular velocity Ω about a common diameter. An attempt is made to use the Longuet-Higgins solution of the Laplace tidal equation as the first term of an expansion in powers of the parameter ε = (a − b)/(a + b), of the solution to the full equations governing oscillations in a spherical shell. This leads to a singularity in the second-order terms at the two critical circles where the characteristic cones of the governing equation touch the shell boundaries.

A boundary-layer type of argument is used to examine the apparent non-uniformity in the neighbourhood of these critical circles, and it is found that, in order to remove the singularity in the pressure, an integrable singularity in the velocity components must be introduced on the characteristic cone which touches the inner spherical boundary. Further integrable singularities are introduced by repeated reflexion at the shell boundaries, and so, even outside the critical region the velocity terms contain what may reasonably be described as a pathological term, generally of order ε½ compared to that found by Longuet-Higgins, periodic with wavelength O(εa) in the radial and latitudinal directions.

Some consequences of this result are discussed.

A buoyancy-driven system can be unstable due to two different mechanisms—one mechanical and the other involving buoyancy forces. The mechanical instability is of the type normally studied in connexion with the Orr-Sommerfeld equation. The buoyancy-driven instability is rather different and is related to the ‘Coriolis’-driven instability of rotating fluids. In this paper, the stability of a buoyancy-driven system, recently called a ‘buoyancy layer’, is examined for the whole range of Prandtl numbers, s. The buoyancy-driven instability becomes increasingly important as the Prandtl number is increased and so particular interest is attached to the limit in which the Prandtl number tends to infinity. In this limit, the system is neutrally stable to first order, but second-order effects render the flow unstable at a Reynolds number of order σ-½. Consequences of the results for the stability of convection in a vertical slot are examined.

A reacting flow free of molecular transport exhibits noteworthy behaviour in the neighbourhood of a blunt, symmetrical stagnation point. A local analytical study using the Lighthill-Freeman gas model reveals the basic structure of such a flow. Chemical activity is found to affect some, but not all, of the local characteristics of the flow. Unaffected are the pressure and velocity fields near the stagnation point, where the pressure varies quadratically and the velocity varies linearly as in an inert flow. In addition, the stagnation point is found to be in chemical equilibrium for all non-zero reaction rates. On the other hand the density, temperature, and concentration fields are affected by the non-equilibrium reactions. The extent of this effect can be predicted on the basis of a reaction parameter that measures the rate of reaction in terms of the velocity gradient at the stagnation point. A rapidly reacting flow (with reaction parameter greater than unity) approaches the stagnation point with vanishing gradients of density and temperature, whereas a slowly reacting flow approaches with infinite gradients. The flow field is represented mathematically by functions that are regular along the body but non-analytic in the normal direction. Numerical computations support the validity of the local closed-form solution, and provide information on the local effects of the chemical history of the flow.

Assuming zero divergence, the equations of forced long waves in a uniformly rotating, homogeneous ocean are reduced to a single partial differential equation for the stream function. A shelf of exponential slope between a rigid continent and a sea of uniform depth is taken as a model, and certain other assumptions are made which appear physically reasonable. Calculations made on the basis of this simplified theory are in good qualitative agreement with observations of shelf waves, indicating that these waves are generated by the stress of the longshore component of the geostrophic wind.