Inviscid instability of an unbounded heterogeneous shear layer

Abstract

Stability curves are computed for both spatially and temporally growing disturbances in a stratified mixing layer between two uniform streams. The low Froude number limit, in which the effects of buoyancy predominate, and the high Froude number limit, in which the effects of density variation are manifested by the inertial terms of the vorticity equation, are considered as limiting cases. For the buoyant case, although the spatial growth rates can be predicted reasonably well by suitable use of the results for temporal growth, spatially growing disturbances appear to have high group velocities near the lower cutoff wave-number. For the inertial case, it is demonstrated that density variations can be destabilizing. More precisely, when the stream with the higher velocity has the lower density, both the wave-number range of unstable disturbances and the maximum spatial growth rate are increased relative to the case of homogeneous flow. Finally, it is shown how the growth rate of the most unstable wave in the inertial case diminishes as buoyancy becomes important.