Resonant growth of three-dimensional modes in Falkner–Skan boundary layers with adverse pressure gradients

Abstract

This work documents the spatial development of a triad of instability waves consisting of a plane TS mode and a pair of oblique modes with equal-opposite wave angles which are undergoing subharmonic transition in Falkner-Skan boundary layers with adverse pressure gradients. The motivation for this study is that for wings with zero or moderate sweep angles, transition is most likely to occur in the adverse pressure gradient region past the maximum thickness point and, starting with low initial amplitudes, subharmonic mode transition is expected to be the predominant mechanism for the first growth of of three-dimensional modes. The experiment follows that of Corke & Mangano (1989) in which the disturbances to produce the triad of waves are introduced by a spanwise array of heating wires located near Branch I. The initial conditions are carefully controlled. These include the initial amplitudes, frequencies, relative phase and oblique wave angles. The basic flow consisted of a Falkner-Skan (Hartree) boundary layer with a dimensionless pressure gradient parameter in the range -0.06 ≤ β H ≤ -0.09. The frequency of the TS wave was selected to be near the most amplified based on linear theory. The frequency of the oblique waves was the subharmonic of the TS frequency. The oblique wave angles were set to give the largest secondary growth ( 60°). Compared to similar conditions in a Blasius boundary layer, the adverse pressure gradient was observed to lead to an extra rapid growth of the two- and three-dimensional modes. In this there was a relatively larger maximum amplitude of the fundamental mode and considerably shortened amplitude saturation region compared to zero pressure gradient cases. Analysis of these results includes frequency spectra, the wall-normal distributions of each mode amplitude, and mean velocity profiles. Finally, the streamwise amplitude development is compared with the amplitude model from the nonlinear critical layer analysis of Goldstein & Lee (1992).