--- name: journal-of-fluid-mechanics description: Use when targeting the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) or deciding whether a fundamental fluid-mechanics manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the physical-understanding bar across analysis/computation/experiment, the insight-not-application scope, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Journal of Fluid Mechanics (journal-of-fluid-mechanics) ## Journal positioning The Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM), published by Cambridge University Press, is a leading archival journal for **fundamental fluid mechanics**. It publishes analytical, computational, and experimental studies whose purpose is physical understanding of fluid phenomena — turbulence, hydrodynamic instabilities, multiphase and interfacial flows, geophysical and biological flows, and the dynamics that govern them. The defining expectation is **new insight into the mechanics of a flow**, not a demonstration that a method or device works. Applied CFD of a specific piece of equipment, or a parametric simulation with no extracted physics, is a poor fit. JFM values clean problem formulation, careful evidence, and an interpretation that advances how the community understands the flow. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official author instructions. Before submitting, re-check the live JFM author information. ## When to trigger - The author names JFM for a fluid-mechanics manuscript and wants a fit/framing check. - A flow study must be re-framed from "we simulated/measured this device" into a contribution to the physical understanding of a fluid phenomenon. - The author is choosing between JFM and an applied-CFD, engineering-application, or physics-family venue. - The author needs JFM's physical-insight bar and desk-reject heuristics. ## Scope & topic fit - Turbulence: transition, coherent structures, wall-bounded and free-shear flows, turbulence modeling when it yields mechanistic understanding. - Hydrodynamic stability and instabilities: linear/nonlinear analysis, bifurcation, and the route to complex flow states. - Multiphase, interfacial, and free-surface flows: drops, bubbles, films, capillarity, and phase-change-coupled dynamics with a mechanics contribution. - Geophysical and environmental fluid dynamics: stratified, rotating, convective, and buoyancy-driven flows. - Biological and low-Reynolds-number flows: swimming, flow in/around organisms, microfluidic and suspension mechanics with fundamental insight. - Compressible flows, waves, and vortex dynamics when the advance is physical understanding rather than a specific configuration. ## Method & evidence bar - The central claim is **new physical understanding** of a flow — a mechanism, scaling law, instability, or governing balance — supported by analysis, well-resolved computation, or controlled experiment. - Computation must be verified and adequately resolved, with the physics extracted; an under-resolved or unvalidated CFD run of one geometry is not evidence. - Experiments must report flow conditions, diagnostics, and uncertainty, and isolate the phenomenon of interest with appropriate controls. - Analysis must be mathematically careful: clear governing equations, justified approximations (scaling, asymptotics), and self-consistent derivations. - Position against the closest fluid-mechanics results: what new regime, mechanism, or scaling does the work establish relative to prior understanding. - Reproducibility: report governing equations, boundary/initial conditions, numerical schemes or experimental setups in enough detail to reconstruct the study. ## Structure & house style - Standard full-length research-article structure; JFM also publishes shorter **Rapids** for concise high-impact results — match scope to article type and re-check current definitions on the live guide. - The introduction frames the fluid-mechanics question and the gap in understanding, not an engineering application. - Equations and notation follow standard fluid-mechanics conventions and must be internally consistent; nondimensionalization and key parameters (Reynolds, etc.) stated clearly. - Figures are load-bearing: flow visualizations with quantification, spectra, scaling collapses, and theory-vs-data/computation comparisons. - Supplementary material and movies carry extended data; the main text must establish the central physical insight on its own. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the Cambridge University Press anchors, then cite the current JFM author-information page you checked. - Search the live site for "Journal of Fluid Mechanics information for authors" and follow the current Cambridge/submission-system version. - Re-check article types (full article vs. Rapids), length/figure expectations, and the JFM style/template conventions. - Confirm data-availability, supplementary-movie, and reproducibility expectations for computational and experimental work. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure requirements, and any open-access options. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The contribution is new physical understanding of a flow (mechanism / scaling / instability), not a device demonstration. - [ ] Computations are verified and resolved, and the physics is extracted — not a single unvalidated CFD run. - [ ] Experiments report conditions, diagnostics, and uncertainty, and isolate the phenomenon. - [ ] Analysis has clear governing equations and justified approximations, with key dimensionless parameters stated. - [ ] Novelty is pinned to specific prior fluid-mechanics results (new regime / mechanism / scaling). - [ ] The article type (full vs. Rapids) and length fit JFM's format. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Applied CFD of a specific device or geometry with no fluid-mechanics insight extracted. - Under-resolved or unvalidated simulations presented as physical evidence. - Parametric study reporting numbers with no mechanism, scaling, or governing balance. - Experiment-only flow report with no quantification, uncertainty, or mechanics interpretation. - Scope mismatch: a heat-transfer-equipment, chemical-process, or numerical-methods paper with fluid mechanics as a label. - Better framed as an engineering-application or computational-methods contribution. ## Re-routing decision - Broad-audience high-impact fluid-physics discovery → `nature-physics` (conceptual-advance bar) or `science-advances`. - Solid-mechanics rather than fluid mechanics → `journal-of-the-mechanics-and-physics-of-solids`. - Manufacturing/process flow where the device is the point → `international-journal-of-machine-tools-and-manufacture`. - Aerospace-flow review/survey rather than primary research → `progress-in-aerospace-sciences`. - Applied-CFD methods or engineering-configuration focus → a computational-fluids or applications venue. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Journal of Fluid Mechanics [Topic tags] <2–3 closest fluid-mechanics subtopics> [Insight] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Article type] full article / Rapids [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```