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Reynolds-number-independent instability of the boundary layer over a flat surface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2006

Paolo Luchini
Paolo Luchini
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Politecnico di Milano, Via Golgi 40, 20133 Milano, Italy
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Abstract

A three-dimensional mode of spatial instability, related to the temporal algebraic growth that determines lift-up in parallel flow, is found to occur in the two-dimensional boundary layer growing over a flat surface. This unstable perturbation can be framed within the limits of Prandtl's standard boundary-layer approximation, and therefore develops at any Reynolds number for which the boundary layer exists, in sharp contrast to all previously known flow instabilities which only occur beyond a sharply defined Reynolds-number threshold. It is thus a good candidate for the initial linear amplification mechanism that leads to bypass transition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 327 , 25 November 1996 , pp. 101 - 115
Copyright
© 1996 Cambridge University Press

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