We present results of experiments on a turbulent grid flow and a few results on measurements in the outer region of a boundary layer over a smooth plate. The air flow measurements included three velocity components and their nine gradients. This was done by a twelve-wire hot-wire probe (3 arrays × 4 wires), produced for this purpose using specially made equipment (micromanipulators and some other auxiliary special equipment), calibration unit and calibration procedure. The probe had no common prongs and the calibration procedure was based on constructing a calibration function for each combination of three wires in each array (total 12) as a three-dimensional Chebishev polynomial of fourth order. A variety of checks were made in order to estimate the reliability of the results.Among the results the most prominent are the experimental confirmation of the strong tendency for alignment between vorticity and the intermediate eigenvector of the rate-of-strain tensor, the positiveness of the total enstrophy-generating term ωiωjsij (sij = ½(∂ui/∂xj+∂uj/∂xi), ωi = εijk∂uj/∂xk) even for rather short records and the tendency for alignment in the strict sense between vorticity and the vortex stretching vector Wi = ωjsij. An emphasis is put on the necessity to measure invariant quantities, i.e. independent of the choice of the system of reference (e.g. sijsij and ωiωjsij) as the most appropriate to describe physical processes. From the methodological point of view the main result is that the multi-hot-wire technique can be successfully used for measurements of all the nine velocity derivatives in turbulent flows, at least at moderate Reynolds numbers.

The large-scale structures that occur in a forced turbulent mixing layer at moderately high Reynolds numbers have been modelled by linear inviscid stability theory incorporating first-order corrections for slow spatial variations of the mean flow. The perturbation stream function for a spatially growing time-periodic travelling wave has been numerically evaluated for the measured linearly diverging mean flow. In an accompanying experiment periodic oscillations were imposed on the turbulent mixing layer by the motion of a small flap at the trailing edge of the splitter plate that separated the two uniform streams of different velocity. The results of the numerical computations are compared with experimental measurements.When the comparison between experimental data and the computational model was made on a purely local basis, agreement in both the amplitude and phase distribution across the mixing layer was excellent. Comparisons on a global scale revealed, not unexpectedly, less good accuracy in predicting the overall amplification.

Emerging application areas such as air pollution in megacities, wind energy, urban security, and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles have intensified scientific and societal interest in mountain meteorology. To address scientific needs and help improve the prediction of mountain weather, the U.S. Department of Defense has funded a research effort—the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations (MATERHORN) Program—that draws the expertise of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, and multinational group of researchers. The program has four principal thrusts, encompassing modeling, experimental, technology, and parameterization components, directed at diagnosing model deficiencies and critical knowledge gaps, conducting experimental studies, and developing tools for model improvements. The access to the Granite Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Testbed of the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, as well as to a suite of conventional and novel high-end airborne and surface measurement platforms, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate phenomena of time scales from a few seconds to a few days, covering spatial extents of tens of kilometers down to millimeters. This article provides an overview of the MATERHORN and a glimpse at its initial findings. Orographic forcing creates a multitude of time-dependent submesoscale phenomena that contribute to the variability of mountain weather at mesoscale. The nexus of predictions by mesoscale model ensembles and observations are described, identifying opportunities for further improvements in mountain weather forecasting.

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The results of an experimental study carried out to investigate the structure of turbulence near a shear-free density interface are presented. The experimental configuration consisted of a two-layer fluid medium in which the lower layer was maintained in a turbulent state by an oscillating grid. The measurements included the root-mean-square (r.m.s.) turbulent velocities, wavenumber spectra, dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy and integral lengthscales. It was found that the introduction of a density interface to a turbulent flow can strongly distort the structure of turbulence near the interface wherein the horizontal velocity components are amplified and the vertical component is damped. The modification of r.m.s velocities is essentially limited to distances smaller than about an integral lengthscale. Inspection of spectra shows that these distortions are felt only at small wavenumbers of the order of the integral scale and a range of low-wavenumbers of the inertial subrange; the distortions become pronounced as the interface is approached. Comparison of the horizontal velocity data with the rapid distortion theory (RDT) analyses of Hunt & Graham (1978) and Hunt (1984) showed a qualitative agreement near the interface and a quantitative agreement away from the interface. On the other hand, the RDT predictions for the vertical component were in general agreement with the data. The near-interface horizontal velocity data, however, showed quantitative agreement with a model proposed by Hunt (1984) based on nonlinear vortex dynamics near the interface. The effects due to interfacial waves appear to be important for distances less than about 10% of the integral lengthscale. As a consequence of the non-zero energy flux divergence, the introduction of a density interface to oscillating grid turbulence increases the rate of dissipation in the turbulent layer except near the interface, where a sharp drop occurs. The present measurements provide useful information on the structure of turbulence in shear-free boundary layers, such as atmospheric and oceanic convective boundary layers, thus improving modelling capabilities for such flows.

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Evolution of a nonlinear wave field along a laboratory tank is studied experimentally and numerically. The numerical study is based on the Zakharov nonlinear equation, which is modified to describe slow spatial evolution of unidirectional waves as they move along the tank. Groups with various initial shapes, amplitudes and spectral contents are studied. It is demonstrated that the applied theoretical model, which does not impose any constraints on the spectral width, is capable of describing accurately, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the slow spatial variation of the group envelopes. The theoretical model also describes accurately the variation along the tank of the spectral shapes, including free wave components and the bound waves.

Spatial evolution of nonlinear narrow-spectrum deep-water wave groups is studied experimentally in a wave tank. The experimental results are compared with the computations based on the unidirectional Zakharov equation and the Dysthe model. The very good agreement between the computational results based on both models with the experiments prompted an attempt to perform simulations for a wider initial spectral width, that formally violate the assumptions adopted in the derivation of the Dysthe model. The accuracy of the results based on the Dysthe model is checked against the solutions of the Zakharov equation, which is free of restrictions on the spectral width. Conclusions regarding the domain of validity of the Dysthe model are drawn.