Intrinsic flame instabilities in combustors: Analytic description of a 1-D resonator model

The study is concerned with theoretical examination of thermo-acoustic instabilities in combustors and focuses on recently discovered ‘flame intrinsic modes’. These modes differ qualitatively from the acoustic modes in a combustor. Although these flame intrinsic modes were intensely studied, primarily numerically and experimentally, the instability properties and dependence on the characteristics of the combustor remain poorly understood. Here we investigate analytically the properties of intrinsic modes within the framework of a linearized model of a quarter wave resonator with temperature and cross-section jump across the flame, and a linear model of heat release. The analysis of dispersion relation for the eigen-modes of the resonator shows that there are always infinite numbers of intrinsic modes present. In the limit of small interaction index n the frequencies of these modes depend neither on the properties of the resonator, nor on the position of the flame. For small n these modes are strongly damped. The intrinsic modes can become unstable only if n exceeds a certain threshold. Remarkably, on the neutral curve the intrinsic modes become completely decoupled from the environment. Their exact dispersion relation links the intrinsic mode eigen-frequency ωi with the mode number and the time lag τ: , where , +/−1. The main results of the study follow from the mode decoupling on the neutral curve and include explicit analytic expressions for the exact neutral curve on the plane, and the growth/decay rate dependence on the parameters of the combustor in the vicinity the neutral curve. The instability domain in the parameter space was found to have a very complicated shape, with many small islands of instability, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to map it thoroughly numerically. The analytical results have been verified by numerical examination

Explicit wave action conservation for water waves on vertically sheared flows

This paper addresses a major shortcoming of the current generation of wave models, namely their inability to describe wave propagation upon ambient currents with vertical shear. The wave action conservation equation (WAE) for linear waves propagating in horizontally inhomogeneous vertically-sheared currents is derived following Voronovich (1976). The resulting WAE specifies conservation of a certain depth-averaged quantity, the wave action, a product of the wave amplitude squared, eigenfunctions and functions of the eigenvalues of the boundary value problem for water waves upon a vertically sheared current. The formulation of the WAE is made explicit using known asymptotic solutions of the boundary value problem which exploit the smallness of the current magnitude compared to the wave phase velocity and/or its vertical shear and curvature; the adopted approximations are shown to be sufficient for most of the conceivable applications. In the limit of vanishing current shear, the new formulation reduces to that of Bretherton and Garrett (1968) without shear and the invariant is calculated with the current magnitude taken at the free surface. It is shown that in realistic oceanic conditions, the neglect of the vertical structure of the currents in wave modelling which is currently universal might lead to significant errors in wave amplitude. The new WAE which takes into account the vertical shear can be better coupled to modern circulation models which resolve the three-dimensional structure of the uppermost layer of the ocean

What do we need to Probe Upper Ocean Stratification Remotely?

We consider whether it is possible in principle to retrieve the key parameters of the mixed layer in the upper ocean (its thickness, bulk eddy viscosity and the pycnocline stratification below) using a theoretical model, which assumes the surface velocity and wind stress to be known from observations. To this end we examine the dynamics of the Ekman current in the novel two-layer model of the upper ocean made of two layers with greatly differing constant eddy viscosities. The presence of stratification manifests itself through suppression of turbulence and, hence, in much smaller value of the eddy viscosity compared to the bulk eddy viscosity ve1 in the mixed layer. Within this two-layer model the general solution in terms of Green’s function has been derived and analyzed. It was found that a spectral component of frequency ω of the Ekman current on the surface “feels” the presence of the stratified layer when the mixed layer depth d is less then or comparable to the Ekman scale 2ve1/f+ω−−−−−−−−−√, where f is the Coriolis parameter. Thus, under conditions of strong wind resulting in large eddy viscosity ve1, the depth of the mixed layer could be (in principle) inferred from the observations of wind and surface velocity. We conclude by stating that to retrieve the mixed layer parameters from the wind and surface velocity data, the theoretical model has to be extended by taking into account the effects of the Stokes drift due to surface waves and the possibility of intense mixing at the bottom of the mixed layer

Effects of finite non-Gaussianity on evolution of a random wind wave field.

We examine the long-term evolution of a random wind wave field generated by constant forcing, by comparing numerical simulations of the kinetic equation and direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the dynamical equations. While the integral characteristics of the spectra are in reasonably good agreement, the spectral shapes differ considerably at large times, the DNS spectral shape being in much better agreement with field observations. Varying the number of resonant and approximately resonant wave interactions in the DNS numerical scheme, we show that when the ratio of nonlinear and linear parts of the Hamiltonian tends to zero, the DNS spectral shape approaches the shape predicted by the kinetic equation. We attribute the discrepancies between the kinetic equation modeling, on one side, and the DNS and observations, on the other, to the neglect of non-Gaussianity in the derivation of the kinetic equation

Spectral evolution of weakly nonlinear random waves: kinetic description versus direct numerical simulations

Kinetic equations are widely used in many branches of science to describe the evolution of random wave spectra. To examine the validity of these equations, we study numerically the long-term evolution of water wave spectra without wind input using three different models. The first model is the classical kinetic (Hasselmann) equation (KE). The second model is the generalised kinetic equation (gKE), derived employing the same statistical closure as the KE but without the assumption of quasistationarity. The third model, which we refer to as the DNS-ZE, is a direct numerical simulation algorithm based on the Zakharov integrodifferential equation, which plays the role of the primitive equation for a weakly nonlinear wave field. It does not employ any statistical assumptions. We perform a comparison of the spectral evolution of the same initial distributions without forcing, with/without a statistical closure and with/without the quasistationarity assumption. For the initial conditions, we choose two narrow-banded spectra with the same frequency distribution and different degrees of directionality. The short-term evolution ( wave periods) of both spectra has been previously thoroughly studied experimentally and numerically using a variety of approaches. Our DNS-ZE results are validated both with existing short-term DNS by other methods and with available laboratory observations of higher-order moment (kurtosis) evolution. All three models demonstrate very close evolution of integral characteristics of the spectra, approaching with time the theoretical asymptotes of the self-similar stage of evolution. Both kinetic equations give almost identical spectral evolution, unless the spectrum is initially too narrow in angle. However, there are major differences between the DNS-ZE and gKE/KE predictions. First, the rate of angular broadening of initially narrow angular distributions is much larger for the gKE and KE than for the DNS-ZE, although the angular width does appear to tend to the same universal value at large times. Second, the shapes of the frequency spectra differ substantially (even when the nonlinearity is decreased), the DNS-ZE spectra being wider than the KE/gKE ones and having much lower spectral peaks. Third, the maximal rates of change of the spectra obtained with the DNS-ZE scale as the fourth power of nonlinearity, which corresponds to the dynamical time scale of evolution, rather than the sixth power of nonlinearity typical of the kinetic time scale exhibited by the KE. The gKE predictions fall in between. While the long-term DNS show excellent agreement with the KE predictions for integral characteristics of evolving wave spectra, the striking systematic discrepancies for a number of specific spectral characteristics call for revision of the fundamentals of the wave kinetic description

Boundary layer collapses described by the two-dimensional intermediate long-wave equation

We study the nonlinear dynamics of localized perturbations of a confined generic boundary-layer shear flow in the framework of the essentially two-dimensional generalization of the intermediate long-wave (2d-ILW) equation. The 2d-ILW equation was originally derived to describe nonlinear evolution of boundary layer perturbations in a fluid confined between two parallel planes. The distance between the planes is characterized by a dimensionless parameter D. In the limits of large and small D, the 2d-ILW equation respectively tends to the 2d Benjamin-Ono and 2d Zakharov-Kuznetsov equations. We show that localized initial perturbations of any given shape collapse, i.e., blow up in a finite time and form a point singularity, if the Hamiltonian is negative, which occurs if the perturbation amplitude exceeds a certain threshold specific for each particular shape of the initial perturbation. For axisymmetric Gaussian and Lorentzian initial perturbations of amplitude a and width σ, we derive explicit nonlinear neutral stability curves that separate the domains of perturbation collapse and decay on the plane (a, σ) for various values of D. The amplitude threshold a increases as D and σ decrease and tends to infinity at D → 0. The 2d-ILW equation also admits steady axisymmetric solitary wave solutions whose Hamiltonian is always negative; they collapse for all D except D = 0. But the equation itself has not been proved for small D. Direct numerical simulations of the 2d-ILW equation with Gaussian and Lorentzian initial conditions show that initial perturbations with an amplitude exceeding the found threshold collapse in a self-similar manner, while perturbations with a below-threshold amplitude decay

D'Alembert‐type solution of the Cauchy problem for the Boussinesq‐Klein‐Gordon equation

In this paper, we construct a weakly‐nonlinear d'Alembert‐type solution of the Cauchy problem for the Boussinesq‐Klein‐Gordon (BKG) equation. Similarly to our earlier work based on the use of spatial Fourier series, we consider the problem in the class of periodic functions on an interval of finite length (including the case of localized solutions on a large interval), and work with the nonlinear partial differential equation with variable coefficients describing the deviation from the oscillating mean value. Unlike our earlier paper, here we develop a novel multiple‐scales procedure involving fast characteristic variables and two slow time scales and averaging with respect to the spatial variable at a constant value of one or another characteristic variable, which allows us to construct an explicit and compact d'Alembert‐type solution of the nonlinear problem in terms of solutions of two Ostrovsky equations emerging at the leading order and describing the right‐ and left‐propagating waves. Validity of the constructed solution in the case when only the first initial condition for the BKG equation may have nonzero mean value follows from our earlier results, and is illustrated numerically for a number of instructive examples, both for periodic solutions on a finite interval, and localized solutions on a large interval. We also outline an extension of the procedure to the general case, when both initial conditions may have nonzero mean values. Importantly, in all cases, the initial conditions for the leading‐order Ostrovsky equations by construction have zero mean, while initial conditions for the BKG equation may have nonzero mean values

Observations of meteotsunami on the Louisiana shelf: a lone soliton with a soliton pack

The paper reports unique high-resolution observations of meteotsunami by a large array of oceanographic instruments deployed on the Atchafalaya Shelf (Louisiana, USA) in 2008 with the primary aim to study wave dissipation in muddy environments. The meteotsunami event on March 7, 2008, was caused by the passage of a cold front which was monitored by the NOAA NEXRAD radar. The observations of water surface elevations on the shelf show a highly detailed textbook picture of an undular bore (solibore) in the process of its disintegration into a train of solitons. The picture has a striking feature never reported before not only for the meteotsunamis but in other contexts of disintegration of a long-wave perturbation into a sequence of solitons as well—the persistent presence of a single soliton, well ahead of the solibore. Data analysis and simulations based on the celebrated variable-coefficient KdV (vKdV) equation first proposed by Ostrovsky and Pelinovsky (Izv Atmos Ocean Phys 11:37–41, 1975) explain the physics of this phenomenon and suggest that the formation of the lone soliton ahead of the solibore is very likely to be the result of the specific interplay of natural meteotsunami forcing and nearshore bathymetry. The analysis strongly suggests that the patterns of coexisting lone solitons and packets of cnoidal waves should be quite common for meteotsunamis. They were not observed before only because of the scarcity of high-resolution observations. The results highlight the effectiveness of the vKdV equation in providing understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of the complex natural phenomenon that would otherwise require computationally very expensive numerical models

Can edge waves be generated by wind?

Edge waves, the infragravity waves trapped by near-shore topography, are important in morphodynamics and flooding on mildly sloping beaches. Edge waves are usually generated by swell via triad interactions. Here, we examine the possibility that edge waves might be also generated directly by wind. By processing data from the SandyDuck'97 near-shore experiment, we show that pronounced directional asymmetry of edge waves does occur in nature, apparently unrelated to the direction of swells and along-shore currents. These observations exhibit edge waves propagating in the downwind direction under moderate wind against the along-shore currents, while swell is incident nearly normally to the shoreline, which strongly suggests generation of edge waves by wind. We examine theoretically possible mechanisms of edge-wave excitation by wind. We show that the 'maser' mechanism suggested by Longuet-Higgins (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, vol. 311, issue 1506,1969b, pp. 371-389) in the context of excitation of free water waves is effective under favourable conditions: nonlinearly interacting random short wind-forced waves create a viscous shear stress on the water surface with the variation of stress being phase linked to edge waves, which allows self-excitation of a coherent edge wave. The model we put forward is based upon the kinetic equation for short wind waves propagating on the inhomogeneous current due to an edge wave. The model needs a dedicated experiment for validation. Analysis of plausible alternative mechanisms of generation via Miles' critical layer and via the viscous shear stresses induced by the edge wave in the air revealed no instability in the consideration confined to the main mode and constant slope bathymetry