Mixing hot and cold with sound

An acoustically forced fluid system is known to generate a time-averaged mean, or streaming, flow that evolves on a slow time scale compared to the acoustic-wave period. Classical acoustic streaming in a homogeneous fluid is typically associated with a one-way coupled system wherein the oscillatory acoustic fields inform the streaming mean flow, without any appreciable feedback. In contrast, Michel & Chini (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 858, 2019, pp. 536–564) investigate acoustic streaming in a stratified fluid and demonstrate that the streaming is sufficiently strong to induce significant rearrangements of the background temperature and density fields, resulting in a strong coupling between the acoustic waves and mean flow. This new class of streaming, referred to as baroclinic acoustic streaming, is shown to result in altered streaming patterns with enhanced heat transport that makes possible a range of new applications.