An experimental investigation of spin-up from rest of a stratified fluid

We examine the spin-up from rest of a stratified fluid with initial Brunt–Väisälä frequency N bound within a cylindrical container of height 2H and radius R which is set to rotate impulsively with angular speed f/2. Particular attention is given to characterizing the dependence of the form of the resulting flow on the governing parameters. Our experimental study reveals a wealth of flow behaviours and instabilities. In all experiments, the initial phase of motion is marked by the establishment of mixed axisymmetric corner regions fed by radial Ekman transport, a process detailed in Flór et al. (Flór, J.B., Ungarish, M. and Bush, J.W.M., “Spin-up from rest of a stratified fluid: boundary flows”, J. Fluid Mech., 472, 51–82 (Citation2002).). The subsequent evolution of the central vortex depends critically on the Burger number , where is the buoyancy frequency of the central core following the establishment of the corner regions. For B > 1.0, the axisymmetry of the system is retained throughout the spin-up process: the central vortex attains a state of near solid body rotation by the diffusion of vorticity from the sidewalls. For B < 1.0, the central core becomes baroclinically unstable, and its streamlines strained from circles into ellipses. Subsequently, for Nc/f < 1 (and B < 1.0), the symmetry of the central core is broken in a manner reminiscent of the elliptical instability. For short tanks (2H/R < 1), the instability is marked by a simple tip-over of the central core in the laboratory frame that is resisted by the core stratification. For 2H/R > 1, the centreline of the stratified core is deflected into a helical form before the core breaks into a series of stacked vortices. A Burger number criterion, , for the baroclinic instability of the central core is derived and found to be consistent with the experimental observations.