Effect of frequency and wavenumber on the three-dimensional routes of transition by wall excitation

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) routes of transition affected by the frequency of monochromatic wall excitation started impulsively are studied by performing direct numerical simulation. The computed results for the two frequencies of excitation reported here resemble the experimental setup of Klebanoff et al. [“The three-dimensional nature of boundary-layer instability,” J. Fluid Mech. 12(1), 1–34 (1962)], where a two-dimensional boundary layer is excited using 3D disturbances. Such a monochromatic wall excitation creates three-component disturbance field: a near-field followed by the Tollmien-Schlichting wave-packet and a spatiotemporal wave-front (STWF), which is responsible for eventual transition. It is noted that the case of moderate frequency of excitation shows a complete noninteracting nature of the near-field solution and the STWF. We report another route of transition computationally for a lower frequency of excitation. This case shows an interacting nature of the near-field solution and the STWF. While both frequency of excitations can cause transition for moderate spanwise wavelength (λz) disturbances, dependence of transition on λz is reported here for the first time. It is noted that doubling the spanwise wavenumber leads to the disappearance of STWF and no transition of the flow. We use the recently developed disturbance enstrophy transport equation in Sengupta et al. [“An enstrophy based linear and nonlinear receptivity theory,” Phys. Fluids 30, 054106 (2018)] for a better quantitative method to trace the evolution of disturbance field of the imposed 3D disturbances.