Sharp Transition in the Lift Force of a Fluid Flowing Past Nonsymmetrical Obstacles: Evidence for a Lift Crisis in the Drag Crisis Regime.

Bluff bodies moving in a fluid experience a drag force which usually increases with velocity. However in a particular velocity range a drag crisis is observed, i.e.

Mach-like capillary-gravity wakes.

We determine experimentally the angle α of maximum wave amplitude in the far-field wake behind a vertical surface-piercing cylinder translated at constant velocity U for Bond numbers Bo(D)=D/λ(c) ranging between 0.1 and 4.2, where D is the cylinder diameter and λ(c) the capillary length.

Scaling of far-field wake angle of nonaxisymmetric pressure disturbance.

It has been recently emphasized that the angle of maximum wave amplitude α in the wake of a disturbance of finite size can be significantly narrower than the maximum value α_{K}=sin^{-1}(1/3)≃19.47^{∘} predicted by the classical analysis of Kelvin. For axisymmetric disturbance, a simple argument based on the Cauchy-Poisson initial-value problem suggests that the wake angle decreases following a Mach-like law at large velocity, α≃Fr_{L}^{-1}, where Fr_{L}=U/sqrt[gL] is the Froude number based on the disturbance velocity U, its size L, and gravity g.

Ship wakes: Kelvin or Mach angle?

From the analysis of a set of airborne images of ship wakes, we show that the wake angles decrease as U(-1) at large velocities, in a way similar to the Mach cone for supersonic airplanes. This previously unnoticed Mach-like regime is in contradiction with the celebrated Kelvin prediction of a constant angle of 19.47° independent of the ship's speed.

Transition by intermittency in granular matter: from discontinuous avalanches to continuous flow.

We investigate, in the rotating drum configuration, the transition from the regime of discontinuous avalanches observed at low angular velocity to the regime of continuous flow observed at higher velocity. Instead of the hysteretic transition reported previously by Rajchenbach [Phys. Rev.