Instabilities of the flow in a curved channel with compliant walls

Abstract

The linear stability of flows in curved compliant channels is examined. The walls bounding the fluid are modelled as thin cylindrical shells supported by a rigid outer frame through arrays of springs and dampers; this is often referred to as Kramer-type coating. Sufficiently soft compliant walls have an influence on the large-scale streamwise vortices produced in the channel by the centrifugal force, although the effect is limited to modes of large enough spanwise wavelengths. For even longer wavelengths, a spanwise-periodic surface-based wave precedes the onset of the streamwise vortex instability. Longitudinal or oblique travelling-wave flutter modes may appear and dominate the transition scenario, for sufficiently compliant walls, depending on the receptivity conditions.