78th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (Nov 23 — 25, 2025)

V052: Visualizing Turbulent Free Surface Wake: Dynamics and Instability

Authors
  • Cong Wang, University of Iowa
  • David Butlter , University of Iowa, IIHR Hydroscience & Engineering
  • Skinder Dar , University of Iowa, IIHR Hydroscience & Engineering

Turbulent free-surface wake flows play a critical role in a wide range of engineering applications, particularly in marine and naval hydrodynamics. In this video, we visualize the wake behind a surface-piercing model using dual-color fluorescent dyes. The dye streaklines reveal a distinct feature of turbulent free-surface wakes: within specific regimes of the non-dimensional parameter space, the near free-surface flow undergoes an unstable transition between vortex-shedding and no-shedding modes.

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