About Flow

Flow is a high-quality, peer-reviewed, open access journal publishing novel and impactful research that leverages fluid mechanics to enable new technology, natural and medical sciences, and a better understanding of the environmental and physical world.

Freely available to read, share and distribute, Flow welcomes contributions from all researchers including industry, national laboratories, and academia.

Flow Editors and Advisory Board Members are renowned leading international experts in specialized topics covering engineering, physics, and chemical, environmental, biological, and life sciences.

Scope

Our scope is wide-ranging. It includes but is not limited to the following:

• Acoustic devices and phenomena
• Aeronautics and astronautics
• Astrophysics
• Biomedical applications and devices
• Electrochemical separation and process systems
• Oceanography and limnology
• Geophysical, geological flows, and climate
• Heating and ventilation
• Micro-scale transport and microfluidics technologies
• Naval applications
• Propulsion technologies and flow-driven energy generation
• Physiological flows and biological flow phenomena
• Water purification and technologies

New applications of fluid mechanics can also involve flow analyses of non-fluid systems such as human crowd motion, granular flows, and power grid dynamics.

The novelty of the work can be in the combination of the fundamental and an application and/or the novelty of the application itself. Flow aims to promote manifold interfaces between fluid mechanics and other fields. Papers should be intelligible to a broad scientific audience, from theoreticians to practitioners.

Article types

Flow considers the following peer-reviewed article types listed below. The suggested templated page counts are strongly recommended (except in the case of Flow Rapids where the page limit is enforced). There is no limit on the length of an accompanying Supplementary Information document.

Research articles (16 pages excluding references) 

These articles will contain outstanding research, peer-reviewed and accepted for publication on the basis of novelty and quality of the underlying data and analysis.  Novelty includes an understanding of the applied systems using fluid mechanics or a new application itself.  The work must be original, high-quality, and accessible to cross-disciplinary researchers. Each article has to demonstrate significant impact in its applied discipline.

We recommend that you format your manuscript using the templates we provide in MS Word or LaTeX. In this format, the maximum manuscript length for submission is 16 pages (not including References).

If you do not use one of the suggested templates and fonts, then your manuscript should meet a total word count of 15,000 words or less. This word sum includes abstract, impact statement, main body, appendices, and figure captions. It does not include References or SI material. Count standard figures (but not their captions) as 500 words, and compound figures as 800 words. A compound figure is one where multiple panels are stacked vertically in the page.

Flow Rapids (6 pages)

This category is designed for concisely written, cutting-edge research articles for which rapid publication is considered desirable. Papers in this category should not exceed six templated pages of the journal, including references.

Case Studies (12 pages)

Case studies are written from the points of view of a researcher in industry and the natural or medical sciences. These case studies will describe existing or potential applications of fluid mechanics in these applied fields. These papers serve as a venue for industry, environmental, or medical practitioners and applied researchers to identify and describe the grand challenges in their applied fields, with a call for fluid dynamicists to help address those challenges. It can cover areas as wide as climate change, aerospace industry or medicine.  This type of paper can include positive and negative testing results of applied efforts such as design, prototyping, and performance testing.

Review articles (25-40 pages)

Critical reviews provide a balanced and authoritative current account of the existing literature concerning the interface between fluid mechanics (and transport phenomena) and one particular facet of the applied or engineering sciences.  Authors should identify representative publications to review and describe them critically in a manner accessible to a multidisciplinary audience.  Review papers are not expected to comprehensively list all literature but should provide a selected body of work necessary to summarize the state of the art and, ideally, identify unaddressed challenges and future directions.

Tutorial reviews should provide an introduction and overview on an important topic of relevance to the journal readership. These papers should be aimed at both students and researchers who are new to the field and serve as a useful summary or reference to experts in the field.  The articles should provide a good introduction to governing principles and summarize the methods and tools applied in the field. Articles can also include a historical perspective and/or indication of future directions the field is expected to take.

The templates provided below can be used to help you prepare articles. All articles should be submitted via the Flow ScholarOne submission system.

Preparing your article for submission

Authors should write their papers clearly and concisely in English. Articles should define all acronyms the first time they are used and avoid field-specific jargon. We encourage the submission of online supplementary material alongside the manuscript where appropriate. Metric units should be used throughout and all abbreviations must be defined at first use, even those deemed to be well known to the readership. British spelling must be used, and should follow the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

All submissions should be made through the Flow ScholarOne submission system.

Templates

Flow research article templates are available for download here:

• Flow LaTeX template files
• Flow Word template

Cover letter

Authors are prompted to provide a short cover letter to the editors through a form in the  ScholarOne submission system.

Title page

The first page of the main manuscript should include

• a concise (preferably up to 12 words) but informative title, reflective of the content.
• The names and institutional affiliations of the authors, indicating with asterisk the corresponding author and his/her email address.
• Any of the authors’ ORCIDs.

More information on authorship, contributorship, affiliations and ORCID is outlined below

Abstract

This must summarise the purpose and scope of the paper and be no more than 200 words in length. Please see our guide to writing an effective abstract for more information.

Image for Thumbnail or graphical abstract

Please submit an appropriate image to be used as a small thumbnail in the table of contents and on the abstract page. Multiple panels are not suitable and will be rejected. The image must be of aspect ratio 1.2:1 (e.g. 6 cm x 5 cm) and should be submitted in GIF or high-resolution JPEG format (300 dpi). Unless very large, vector graphics are preferred to ensure image sharpness regardless of sizing. If you do not have the copyright to the image, please ensure you have permission to reuse the figure. Text is actively discouraged as a graphical image, but if text must be used, it should be legible in a small thumbnail (2.4 cm x 2 cm) and presented in the table of contents.  All graphical images will be considered for the cover of Flow, by the Flow Editorial Board members. Please make sure that the third-party permission to reproduce the image also includes all marketing and promotional materials and its potential use on the front cover of Flow.  The image will be used on social media as well as an identifier of your article on the volume page online. 

Impact Statement

Beneath the abstract authors must provide a 150-word impact statement that can be one or two coherent paragraphs and must include descriptions of two aspects of the work:

1. The fundamental flow physics component;
2. The translational application of fluid mechanics in engineering, technologies or new understanding of nature, animal or human physiology.

Each paper needs to be intelligible to a wider and multidisciplinary audience (industry, government, wider academia) and must demonstrate its impact for the community.

Keywords

Keywords can be chosen from the taxonomies indicated in the online submission system. Alternatively, authors can enter their own keywords on the manuscript, as these must be chosen or entered by the author during the online submission process. All the keywords entered will then be displayed on the PDF of the article.

List of potential keywords:

• Fundamental Keywords
• Application Keywords

Provide at least one keyword from each category (fundamental and applications) or feel free to add your own keywords.

Main text

The body of the article, which can be separated using numbered headings and subheadings.

Figures

Submitting your figures, illustrations, pictures and other artwork (such as multimedia and supplementary files) in an electronic format alongside the main article file helps us produce your work to the best possible standards, and ensures accuracy, clarity, and a high level of detail.

All authors need to acquire the correct permissions and licences to reproduce figures, which should be submitted with the production files. Images should be submitted in EPS or high-resolution TIFF format (1200 dpi for lines, 300 dpi for halftone and colour in RGB format, and 600 dpi for a mixture of lines and halftone) and all labels should be editable. Unless very large, vector graphics are preferred to ensure image sharpness regardless of sizing. The minimum acceptable width of any line is 0.5 pt.

Each figure should be accompanied by a single caption, to appear beneath, and must be cited in the text. Figures should appear in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text and figure files must be named accordingly (‘Abstract.eps', 'Fig1.eps’, ‘Fig2a.tiff’, etc) to assist the production process (and numbering of figures should continue through any appendices). The words figure 1, table 1, and movie 1 should be lower case. A reference to the movies will need to be included in the main document either as a separate caption list at the end of the paper before the Reference section or within the text, for example “ See supplementary movie file movie 1”. Failure to follow figure guidelines may result in a request for resupply and a subsequent delay in the production process. Note that all figures will be relabelled by the typesetter, so please ensure all figure labels are carefully checked against your originals when you receive your proofs.

Please see our Journals Artwork Guide for more information.

Permission to use copyright material

If your article contains any material in which you do not own copyright, including figures, charts, tables, photographs or excerpts of text, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to reuse that material. As the author it is your responsibility to obtain this permission and pay any related fees, and you will need to send us a copy of each permission statement at acceptance. 

Please see our guidance on seeking permission to use copyrighted material for more information.

Further information on applying for permission to reuse figures from Cambridge products can be found here. 

Tables

Tables, however small, must be numbered sequentially in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. The words table 1, table 2 should be lower case throughout.

Abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use. A list of abbreviations should be provided at the end of the main text.

Glossaries and Lists

Glossaries or lists/tables of abbreviations are not permitted.

References

References and citations should be formatted correctly in journal style when the article is submitted to the journal but formatting is not grounds for rejection at the submitting phase. References in text should follow the APA citation style. Find here Endnote style and find here Zotero style by searching APA 6th edition.

Disclosure statements

Where appropriate, all articles must include the following sections, which should be added at the end of the manuscript before the Reference section.

• Acknowledgements
• Funding statement (compulsory)
• Competing Interests (compulsory)
• Data availability statement (compulsory)
• Author contributions
• Ethical guidelines



More information about each of the above statements and any relevant Flow polices can be found in the sections below. Please refer to the template for examples.

Acknowledgements

These should recognize help and advice from associates and colleagues who contributed to the article but do not meet the criteria for authorship, as well as other kinds of non-financial support from individuals and organisations.  See also Funding statement below.


Funding statement

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors." 

Data availability statement

The overarching policy of Flow is that research articles should contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, replicate and verify findings, and compare them with alternative studies; for more information see our Research transparency policy. All authors must, therefore, include a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript, describing how readers can access the resources necessary to replicate the findings if they are publicly accessible. If these resources are under embargo or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical, commercial or other reasons, the Data Availability Statement should make this clear with a brief explanation.

Where to deposit the data and code?

Flow recommends that authors make data and code available via public repositories that:

• Are committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of their content.
• Are supported and recognised by the community as appropriate for the resources they hold.
• Provide stable, unique identifiers for the information they hold.
• Support linking between their database records and associated published research articles.
• Allow free public access to their holdings, with reasonable exceptions (such as administration charges for the distribution of physical materials).

Examples of repositories include: the Open Science Framework, Zenodo and GitHub. Many other generalist and subject specific repositories are listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories.

How to comply with this policy?

To comply with Flow's policy, we recommend that you include a Data and Coding Availability Statement in your manuscript, briefly describing how readers may access the resources that support your findings.

If these resources are publicly available, your Data and Coding Availability Statement should state where and how they may be accessed, preferably via a unique, persistent identifier and any applicable licence information.

If these resources are under embargo, or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical or other exceptional reasons, your Data Availability Statement should make this clear with a brief explanation. If resources are commercially distributed, this should also be made clear.

If your findings do not rely on any data, code or other resources for example, in the case of conceptual or theoretical studies, this should be stated.

The Data Availability Statement should be used to provide the URL/ DOI link to the publicly accessible data and provide any additional explanation. There is sufficient information for an independent researcher to reproduce the reported results.

Some examples of Data Availability Statements are given below:

• The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at http://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].
• The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following a [6 month] embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.
• The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party]. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for this study. Data are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party].

For questions on compliance, please contact the editorial office, floweditorial@cambridge.org.

What do we mean by "resources"?

In the interest of supporting transparency and openness, the resources underpinning research findings refer to anything that would be necessary for others to fully evaluate the basis for those findings, and to verify or reproduce the work reported in the article. This includes raw or processed data sets, code, and protocols, as well as qualitative resources such as images, audio, video, maps, interview transcripts, field notes, and public reports. It also includes any information necessary for others to access, interpret, and process these resources.

Flow assumes no responsibility for data uploaded to external repositories and does not perform a full peer review of the raw data. The authors are fully accountable to the community for the accuracy of their statements. Authors are responsible for ensuring that data is usable, files are uncorrupted, and for answering any questions from scholars wishing to replicate the data work.

Resources may also be made available as supplementary information which will be digitally hosted by Flow. Supplementary information files will not be copy edited or otherwise modified before publication, and will not be assigned permanent identifiers.

At this time, reviewers are not required to formally review supplementary information or resources that are not included in the article.

Author contributions

Authors may include details of the contributions made by each author to the manuscript, for example, “A.G. and T.F. derived the theory and T.F. and T.D. performed the simulations. All authors contributed equally to analysing data and reaching conclusions, and in writing the paper.”

See below for more information on Authorship and contributors.

Ethical Guidelines

All Cambridge journals adhere to a set of Ethical Standards, as laid out here. For detailed guidance on Flow's policies please see our Publishing Ethics page.

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation (XXXX ethics committee, approval number XXXX) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals." Any other specific ethical clearance with details of the granting institution should be given in the Methods section.