On the onset of the instability of a three-dimensional jet in a stratified fluid

Abstract

The onset of a three-dimensional jet flow in a stratified fluid is studied with the aid of a direct numerical simulation. An initially cylindrical jet with a Gaussian velocity profile is considered in a fluid with stable linear density stratification. The results indicate that, if an initial small perturbation of the velocity field has a wide spectrum, an exponential growth of the isolated quasi-two-dimensional mode occurs and its spectral maximum is shifted toward smaller wave numbers in comparison with the maximum of the helical mode of the instability of a nonstratified jet. The growth rate is proportional to Ri0.5, where Ri is the global Richardson number. The onset of the instability leads to the formation of the flow’s vortex structure, which consists of a collection of different-polarity quasi-two-dimensional vortices located in a horizontal plane near the longitudinal axis of the jet. At sufficiently long times (Nt > 100, where N is the buoyancy frequency and t is time), the growth of instability reaches the saturation stage and further fluctuations in velocity and density decay under the effect of viscous diffusion. At this stage, the flow becomes self-similar and the time dependences of the transverse and vertical widths of the jet are consistent with the asymptotic behaviors of integral parameters of the flow that are observed experimentally in the far stratified wake. The results suggest that the onset of the instability of a quasitwo-dimensional mode can play the determining role in the dynamics of flow in the far stratified wake.