Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-7tdvq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-18T23:22:28.326Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Coriolis-force attenuation of blocking in a stratified flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2006

M. R. Foster
Affiliation:
Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus

Abstract

Even very small Coriolis forces are shown to alter significantly the nature of the upstream wake of an object in slow (small Froude number) translation through a non-diffusive stratified fluid. If the Ekman number is of order one, the far upstream extent of the wake is reduced. If the fluid rotation is sufficient to make the Ekman number small, the contraction of the wake is much greater. We study a particular case in detail; the Ekman number is small enough to make horizontal boundary layers Ekman layers. In this case, the wake is confined to the vicinity of the object, the upstream flow arising from a combination of Ekman pumping and baroclinic vorticity generation. The upstream flow is described by an eigenfunction whose amplitude is dependent on object geometry. If the object is a semi-infinite rectangular parallelepiped, that amplitude is determined by detailed examination of the shear layer at the face of the parallelepiped and its interaction with the Ekman layer on the top surface of the object

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1979 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnard, B. J. S. & Pritchard, W. G. 1975 J. Fluid Mech. 71, 43.
Foster, M. R. 1977 Z. angew. Math. Phys. 28, 55.
Graebel, W. P. 1969 Quart. J. Mech. Appl. Math. 22, 39.
Greenspan, H. P. 1969 The Theory of Rotating Fluids. Cambridge University Press.
Janowitz, G. S. 1971 J. Fluid Mech. 47, 171.
Martin, S. & Long, R. R. 1968 J. Fluid Mech. 31, 669.
Moore, D. W. & Saffman, P. G. 1969 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 264, 597.
Stewartson, K. 1964 The Theory of Laminar Boundary Layers in Compressible Fluids. Oxford University Press.
Yih, C. S. 1969 Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1, 73.