Lars-Uve Schrader

Receptivity to free-stream vorticity of flow past a flat plate with elliptic leading edge

Receptivity of the two-dimensional boundary layer on a flat plate with elliptic leading edge is studied by numerical simulation. Vortical perturbations in the oncoming free stream are considered, impinging on two leading edges with different aspect ratio to identify the effect of bluntness. The relevance of the three vorticity components of natural free-stream turbulence is illuminated by considering axial, vertical and spanwise vorticity separately at different angular frequencies. The boundary layer is most receptive to zero-frequency axial vorticity, triggering a streaky pattern of alternating positive and negative streamwise disturbance velocity. This is in line with earlier numerical studies on non-modal growth of elongated structures in the Blasius boundary layer. We find that the effect of leading-edge bluntness is insignificant for axial free-stream vortices alone. On the other hand, vertical free-stream vorticity is also able to excite non-modal instability in particular at zero and low frequencies. This mechanism relies on the generation of streamwise vorticity through stretching and tilting of the vertical vortex columns at the leading edge and is significantly stronger when the leading edge is blunt. It can thus be concluded that the non-modal boundary-layer response to a free-stream turbulence field with three-dimensional vorticity is enhanced in the presence of a blunt leading edge. At high frequencies of the disturbances the boundary layer becomes receptive to spanwise free-stream vorticity, triggering Tollmien–Schlichting (T-S) modes and receptivity increases with leading-edge bluntness. The receptivity coefficients to free-stream vortices are found to be about 15 % of those to sound waves reported in the literature. For the boundary layers and free-stream perturbations considered, the amplitude of the T-S waves remains small compared with the low-frequency streak amplitudes.

Receptivity mechanisms in three-dimensional boundary-layer flows

Receptivity in three-dimensional boundary-layer flow to localized surface roughness and free-stream vorticity is studied. A boundary layer of Falkner–Skan–Cooke type with favourable pressure grad ...

Transition to turbulence in the boundary layer over a smooth and rough swept plate exposed to free-stream turbulence

Receptivity, disturbance growth and transition to turbulence of the three-dimensional boundary layer developing on a swept flat plate are studied by means of numerical simulations. The flow is subject to a favourable pressure gradient and represents a model for swept-wing flow downstream of the leading edge and upstream of the pressure minimum of the wing. The boundary layer is perturbed by freestream turbulence and localized surface roughness with random distribution in the spanwise direction. The intensity of the turbulent free-stream fluctuations ranges from conditions typical for free flight to higher levels usually encountered in turbomachinery applications. The free-stream turbulence initially excites non-modal streaklike disturbances as in two-dimensional boundary layers, soon evolving into modal instabilities in the form of unsteady crossflow modes. The crossflow modes grow faster than the streaks and dominate the downstream disturbance environment in the layer. The results show that the receptivity mechanism is linear for the disturbance amplitudes under consideration, while the subsequent growth of the primary disturbances rapidly becomes affected by nonlinear saturation in particular for free-stream fluctuations with high intensity. Transition to turbulence occurs in the form of localized turbulent spots randomly appearing in the flow. The main features of the breakdown are presented for the case of travelling crossflow vortices induced by free-stream turbulence. The flow is also receptive to localized roughness strips, exciting stationary crossflow modes. The mode with most efficient receptivity dominates the downstream disturbance environment. When both free-stream fluctuations and wall roughness act on the boundary layer at the same time, transition is dominated by steady crossflow waves unless the incoming turbulence intensity is larger than about 0.5 % for roughness amplitudes of about one tenth of the boundary-layer displacement thickness. The results show that a correct prediction of the disturbance behaviour can be obtained considering the receptivity and evolution of individual modes. In addition, we provide an estimate for the amplitudes of the external disturbance sources above which a fully nonlinear receptivity analysis is necessary.

Nonlinear receptivity to oblique vortical modes in flow past an elliptic leading edge

Nonlinear boundary-layer receptivity to pairs of unsteady oblique freestream vortical modes is studied in direct numerical simulation of flow over a flat plate with an elliptic leading edge. The freestream is perturbed by three types of oblique Fourier modes, differing in the magnitude of the three vorticity components. The vortical modes excite steady boundary-layer streaks. The associated receptivity mechanism, described in detail, is quadratic in the forcing amplitude. Elliptic leading edges with two different aspect ratios are considered. We find that – and explain why – the streak amplitudes in nonlinear receptivity are largely unaffected by the leading-edge bluntness for the types of external disturbances studied. As linear receptivity is the predominant mechanism at low forcing frequencies, the nonlinear mechanism comes into play when high-frequency vortices are present in the freestream. Nonlinear receptivity is therefore expected to contribute to the excitation of boundary-layer streaks by freest...

Spatial linear disturbances in a plane wall jet

A two-dimensional direct numerical simulation study of the linear instability in a laminar plane wall jet is presented. The evolution of the wall jet disturbances is in reasonable agreement with predictions by spatial linear stability theory only with regard to the wavelength and the amplitude shape of the disturbance, whereas significant differences in the linear growth rate are noticed. As a consequence, the “stable island” on the instability map based on linear stability theory turns out to be connected with the outer stable region in the simulations, thus taking the form of a “stable peninsula”. The failure of the theory is attributed to the rapid streamwise spread and decay of the wall jet, which is incompatible with the assumption of parallel flow. We also assess the maximum possible transient linear amplification of two-dimensional disturbances in the plane wall jet, using the concept of optimal initial disturbances. The transient energy growth relies on the Orr mechanism, and the upper bound of th...

Flow past a plate with elliptic leading edge: layer response to free-stream vorticity

We show the response of the boundary-layer flow past a wing to freestream disturbances with axial, vertical and spanwise vorticity and explain the associated receptivity mechanisms. A flat plate with elliptic leading edge serves as wing model, and the vortical free-stream disturbances are modeled by space and time periodic Fourier modes. The results are extracted from solutions to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations computed with the Spectral Element Method.