Remark on Engineering Aspects of Transition

Abstract

This chapter discusses the remarks on engineering aspects of transition. The scientific aspects of transition encompass the complete process. The engineering aspects of transition are those of concern for the prediction and/or control of the transition process. In an environment where initial disturbance levels are small, the transition Reynolds number of a boundary layer, for example, is very much dependent upon the nature and spectrum of the disturbance environment, the signatures in the boundary layer of these disturbances and their excitation of the normal modes, and finally the linear amplification of the growing normal modes. There is ample documentation that the factors that affect linear amplification are the primary factors that determine the magnitude of the transition Reynolds number. This is simply because the linear amplification step is the slowest of the multiple steps in the transition process.