Stability of low-pressure turbine boundary layers under variable Reynolds number and pressure gradient

Abstract

The free-stream turbulence induced transition occurring under typical low-pressure turbine flow conditions is investigated by comparing linear stability theory with wind tunnel measurements acquired over a flat plate subjected to high turbulence intensity. The analysis was carried out, accounting for three different Reynolds numbers and four different adverse pressure gradients. First, a non-similarity-based boundary layer (BL) solver was used to compute base flows and validated against pressure taps and particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements. Successively, the optimal disturbances and their spatial transient growth were calculated by coupling classical linear stability theory and a direct-adjoint optimization procedure on all flow conditions considered. Linear stability results were compared with experimental particle image velocimetry measurements on both wall-normal and wall-parallel planes. Finally, the sensitivity of the disturbance spatial transient growth to the spanwise wavenumber of perturbations, the receptivity position, and the location where disturbance energy is maximized were investigated via the built numerical model. Overall, the optimal perturbations computed by linear stability theory show good agreement with the streaky structures surveyed in experiments. Interestingly, the energy growth of disturbances was found to be maximum for all the flow conditions examined, when perturbations entered the boundary layer close to the position where minimum pressure occurs.