Related papers: Flutter of a Flag
The eukaryotic flagellum beats periodically, driven by the oscillatory dynamics of molecular motors, to propel cells and pump fluids. Small, but perceivable fluctuations in the beat of individual flagella have physiological implications for…
The motion of a large, neutrally buoyant, particle, freely advected by a turbulent flow is determined experimentally. We demonstrate that both the translational and angular accelerations exhibit very wide probability distributions, a…
Blazars exhibit multiwavelength variability, a phenomenon whose underlying mechanisms remain elusive. This study investigates the origin of such variability through leptonic blazar emission simulations, focusing on stochastic fluctuations…
Laddering is the propagation of a topological defect in an everyday-life material: weft knitted fabrics, following a broken thread or a dropped stitch. What is a minor frustration when damaging a pair of tights is a more serious issue for…
Ocean submesoscales, flows with characteristic size around 10 m - 10 km, are transitional between the larger, rotationally-constrained mesoscale and three-dimensional turbulence. In this paper we present simulations of a submesoscale ocean…
The unsteady flow physics of wind-turbine wakes under dynamic forcing conditions are critical to the modeling and control of wind farms for optimal power density. Unsteady forcing in the streamwise direction may be generated by unsteady…
The standard explanation for large pulsar glitches involves transfer of angular momentum from an internal superfluid component to the star's crust. This model requires an instability to trigger the sudden unpinning of the vortices by means…
We investigate strongly nonlinear stationary gravity waves which experience refraction due to a thin vertical shear layer of horizontal background wind. The velocity amplitude of the waves is of the same order of magnitude as the background…
We discuss persistent currents for particles with internal degrees of freedom. The currents arise because of winding properties essential for the chaotic motion of the particles in a confined geometry. The currents do not change the…
A subsonic flow of an ideal gas through a flat channel in the presence of a mass force field is considered. The forces acting on the gas are reduced to the attraction to the channel axis in a certain region of the channel. It has been shown…
Hummingbirds and insects achieve outstanding flight performance by adapting their flapping motion to the flight requirements. Their wing kinematics can change from smooth flapping to highly dynamic waveforms, generating unsteady aerodynamic…
In this paper we examine the detailed theory of the American football in flight, with spin and air resistance included. We find the theory has much in common with the theory of a gyroscope and also rocket trajectory with a misaligned…
Diverse processes rely on the viscous flow of polymer solutions through porous media. In many cases, the macroscopic flow resistance abruptly increases above a threshold flow rate in a porous medium---but not in bulk solution. The reason…
We explore the rotational stability of hovering flight. Our model is motivated by an experimental pyramid-shaped object and a computational lambda-shaped analog hovering passively in oscillating airflows; both systems have been shown to…
Flow instability and turbulent transition can be well explained using a new proposed theory--Energy gradient theory [1]. In this theory, the stability of a flow depends on the relative magnitude of energy gradient in streamwise direction…
We investigate the conditions leading to large drag force fluctuations in granular materials. The study is based on a set of experimental drag tests, which involve pulling a plate vertically through a cohesionless granular material. In…
Wall turbulence has a sublayer where the mean wall-normal flux of the streamwise momentum is constant. Via the law of the wall, this mean flux is related to the wall-normal profile of the mean streamwise velocity. However, the momentum flux…
The wake of a flexible foil undergoing pitching oscillations in a low-speed hydrodynamic tunnel is used to examine the effect of chord-wise foil flexibility in the dynamical features of flapping-based propulsion. We compare the regime…
We consider the stability of periodic gravity free-surface water waves traveling downstream at a constant speed over a shear flow of finite depth. In case the free surface is flat, a sharp criterion of linear instability is established for…
We use a simple model to study the long time fluctuations induced by random pinning on the motion of driven non--interacting vortices. We find that vortex motion seen from the co--moving frame is diffusive and anisotropic, with velocity…