Asymptotic behavior of the neutral curves of the linear stability problem for a laminar boundary layer

1981 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 669-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. V. Mikhailov
1991 ◽  
Vol 225 ◽  
pp. 575-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Cohen ◽  
Kenneth S. Breuer ◽  
Joseph H. Haritonidis

The transition process of a small-amplitude wave packet, generated by a controlled short-duration air pulse, to the formation of a turbulent spot is traced experimentally in a laminar boundary layer. The vertical and spanwise structures of the flow field are mapped at several downstream locations. The measurements, which include all three velocity components, show three stages of transition. In the first stage, the wave packet can be treated as a superposition of two- and three-dimensional waves according to linear stability theory, and most of the energy is centred around a mode corresponding to the most amplified wave. In the second stage, most of the energy is transferred to oblique waves which are centred around a wave having half the frequency of the most amplified linear mode. During this stage, the amplitude of the wave packet increases from 0.5 % to 5 % of the free-stream velocity. In the final stage, a turbulent spot develops and the amplitude of the disturbance increases to 27 % of the free-stream velocity.Theoretical aspects of the various stages are considered. The amplitude and phase distributions of various modes of all three velocity components are compared with the solutions provided by linear stability theory. The agreement between the theoretical and measured distributions is very good during the first two stages of transition. Based on linear stability theory, it is shown that the two-dimensional mode of the streamwise velocity component is not necessarily the most energetic wave. While linear stability theory fails to predict the generation of the oblique waves in the second stage of transition, it is demonstrated that this stage appears to be governed by Craik-type subharmonic resonances.


2013 ◽  
Vol 737 ◽  
pp. 205-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan R. Hewitt ◽  
Jerome A. Neufeld ◽  
John R. Lister

AbstractConvection in a porous medium at high Rayleigh number $\mathit{Ra}$ exhibits a striking quasisteady columnar structure with a well-defined and $\mathit{Ra}$-dependent horizontal scale. The mechanism that controls this scale is not currently understood. Motivated by this problem, the stability of a density-driven ‘heat-exchanger’ flow in a porous medium is investigated. The dimensionless flow comprises interleaving columns of horizontal wavenumber $k$ and amplitude $\widehat{A}$ that are driven by a steady balance between vertical advection of a background linear density stratification and horizontal diffusion between the columns. Stability is governed by the parameter $A= \widehat{A}\mathit{Ra}/ k$. A Floquet analysis of the linear-stability problem in an unbounded two-dimensional domain shows that the flow is always unstable, and that the marginal-stability curve is independent of $A$. The growth rate of the most unstable mode scales with ${A}^{4/ 9} $ for $A\gg 1$, and the corresponding perturbation takes the form of vertically propagating pulses on the background columns. The physical mechanism behind the instability is investigated by an asymptotic analysis of the linear-stability problem. Direct numerical simulations show that nonlinear evolution of the instability ultimately results in a reduction of the horizontal wavenumber of the background flow. The results of the stability analysis are applied to the columnar flow in a porous Rayleigh–Bénard (Rayleigh–Darcy) cell at high $\mathit{Ra}$, and a balance of the time scales for growth and propagation suggests that the flow is unstable for horizontal wavenumbers $k$ greater than $k\sim {\mathit{Ra}}^{5/ 14} $ as $\mathit{Ra}\rightarrow \infty $. This stability criterion is consistent with hitherto unexplained numerical measurements of $k$ in a Rayleigh–Darcy cell.


2014 ◽  
Vol 752 ◽  
pp. 462-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael O. John ◽  
Dominik Obrist ◽  
Leonhard Kleiser

AbstractWe introduce a new boundary layer formalism on the basis of which a class of exact solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations is derived. These solutions describe laminar boundary layer flows past a flat plate under the assumption of one homogeneous direction, such as the classical swept Hiemenz boundary layer (SHBL), the asymptotic suction boundary layer (ASBL) and the oblique impingement boundary layer. The linear stability of these new solutions is investigated, uncovering new results for the SHBL and the ASBL. Previously, each of these flows had been described with its own formalism and coordinate system, such that the solutions could not be transformed into each other. Using a new compound formalism, we are able to show that the ASBL is the physical limit of the SHBL with wall suction when the chordwise velocity component vanishes while the homogeneous sweep velocity is maintained. A corresponding non-dimensionalization is proposed, which allows conversion of the new Reynolds number definition to the classical ones. Linear stability analysis for the new class of solutions reveals a compound neutral surface which contains the classical neutral curves of the SHBL and the ASBL. It is shown that the linearly most unstable Görtler–Hämmerlin modes of the SHBL smoothly transform into Tollmien–Schlichting modes as the chordwise velocity vanishes. These results are useful for transition prediction of the attachment-line instability, especially concerning the use of suction to stabilize boundary layers of swept-wing aircraft.


2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (2) ◽  
pp. 1579-1595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sijme-Jan Paardekooper ◽  
Colin P McNally ◽  
Francesco Lovascio

ABSTRACT Occurring in protoplanetary discs composed of dust and gas, streaming instabilities are a favoured mechanism to drive the formation of planetesimals. The polydispserse streaming instability is a generalization of the streaming instability to a continuum of dust sizes. This second paper in the series provides a more in-depth derivation of the governing equations and presents novel numerical methods for solving the associated linear stability problem. In addition to the direct discretization of the eigenproblem at second order introduced in the previous paper, a new technique based on numerically reducing the system of integral equations to a complex polynomial combined with root finding is found to yield accurate results at much lower computational cost. A related method for counting roots of the dispersion relation inside a contour without locating those roots is also demonstrated. Applications of these methods show they can reproduce and exceed the accuracy of previous results in the literature, and new benchmark results are provided. Implementations of the methods described are made available in an accompanying python package psitools.


Author(s):  
Gary A. Glatzmaier

This chapter describes a linear stability analysis (that is, solving for the critical Rayleigh number Ra and mode) that allows readers to check their linear codes against the analytic solution. For this linear analysis, each Fourier mode n can be considered a separate and independent problem. The question that needs to be addressed now is under what conditions—that is, what values of Ra, Prandtl number Pr, and aspect ratio a—will the amplitude of the linear solution grow with time for a given mode n. This is a linear stability problem. The chapter first introduces the linear equations before discussing the linear code and explaining how to find the critical Rayleigh number; in other words, the value of Ra for a and Pr that gives a solution that neither grows nor decays with time. It also shows how the linear stability problem can be solved using an analytic approach.


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