AbstractTo date, no comprehensive method of predicting boundary layer transition is available in the literature. In a large class of boundary layers, where disturbances amplify slowly, there is a great separation between the onset of laminar instability and transition. In such flows, current theories on nonlinear instability, which describe the final stages of breakdown to turbulence, fail to predict transition. In these flows, a semi-empirical method based on linear instaibility theory, the so-called e9 method, currently appears to be the best method for computing transition; particularly for quiet boundary layer flows over smooth surfaces. The e9 method has some fundamental weaknesses. For example, why should the method, based on linear instability of small two-dimensional disturbances, be applicable to the transition process which in the final stages is three-dimensional in character? Further, disturbances encountered in practical flows and amplified by a factor of e9 clearly are no longer small disturbances, an assumption central to linear instability theory and the e9 method. In the face of these fundamental weaknesses the method has received some impressive experimental verification. The method requires detailed boundary layer and stability calculations. In this paper, the method is extended to water boundary layers with heat transfer. Computations of transition, based on the e9 method, for a family of heated wedge flows in water-boundary layers are used to formulate a short-cut method for predicting transition. The short-cut method is based on the observation that the interacting effects


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    Title :

    Tollmien-Schlichting waves and transition


    Subtitle :

    Heated and Adiabatic Wedge Flows with Application to Bodies of Revolution


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    1979-01-01


    Size :

    42 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English