On the receptivity of the by-pass transition to the length scale of the outer stream turbulence

Abstract

The effect of length scale on flat-plate by-pass boundary layer transition under free stream turbulence conditions has been investigated. Plane grids generated a constant value of 3 percent intensity turbulent fluctuations and five values of the dissipation length parameter in the range of 2.2 mm to 33.3 mm at 5 m/s flow velocity in the plane of the leading edge of the flat plate. The investigated boundary layer corresponds to the ERCOFTAC Test Case T3A+. Distributions of integral parameters as well as the statistical characteristics of the turbulent fluctuations were measured. They document a significant effect of turbulence length scale on the onset and the end of by-pass transition. It was found that the onset of the final stage of transition comes on later in `fine-grained' turbulence than in the case of large free stream turbulence length scale. At the same time, the extent of the transition region shortens with decreasing length scale. Nevertheless, the transition process terminates sooner in a flow with a large turbulence length scale than in a flow with a small one. An attempt has been made to describe these observations quantitatively.