Oscillation of shallow flow past a cavity: Resonant coupling with a gravity wave

Abstract

Self-excited oscillations of flow past a cavity are generated in a shallow free-surface system. The shear layer past the cavity opening has two basic forms: a separated free-shear flow; and a shear flow along a slotted plate. Instabilities of these classes of shear flows can couple with the fundamental gravity-wave mode of the adjacent cavity. The dimensionless frequencies of both types of oscillations scale on the length of the cavity opening, rather than the gap distance between the slats, i.e., a large-scale instability is always prevalent. A technique of high-image-density particle image velocimetry allows acquisition and interpretation of global, instantaneous images of the flow pattern, including patterns of vorticity and Reynolds stress correlation. Use of a cinema approach provides representations of the timewise evolution of the global, instantaneous flow structure, and thereby definition of the amplitude peaks and phase angles of the coupled fluctuations via auto- and cross-spectral techniques. These methods, along with global, averaged representations of the fluctuating flow field, provide insight into the onset of fully coupled (phase-locked) oscillations of the shear flow past the resonator cavity. The common, as well as the distinctive, features of the resonant-coupled instability of the shear flow past the slotted plate are characterized, relative to the corresponding coupled instability of the free-shear layer. Varying degrees of resonant coupling between the unstable shear layer and the adjacent resonator are attained by variations of the inflow velocity, which yield changes of the predominant oscillation frequency, relative to the resonant frequency of the adjacent cavity. Well-defined, coherent oscillations are indeed attainable for the case of the shear flow along the slotted plate, though their amplitude is significantly mitigated relative to the case of a free-shear layer. The degree of organization of the self-excited, resonant-coupled oscillation and the manner in which it varies with open area ratio and geometry of the plate are interpreted in terms of the flow structure on either side of, and within, the slotted plate; these features are compared with the corresponding structure of the free-shear layer oscillations.