Stability of poiseuille flow of a viscoplastic fluid with respect to perturbations of finite amplitude

The study made in [1] revealed that the Poiseuille flow of a viscoplastic fluid is stable with respect to infinitely small perturbations. At the same time, it is a known fact that at large Reynolds numbers a turbulent-flow regime of a viscoplastic fluid has been observed experimentally (see [2]). The divergence in the results from the linear theory of hydrodynamic stability of the experimental data indicates the need for investigating the stability of the Poiseuille flow of a viscoplastic fluid with respect to finite amplitude perturbations; this forms the main content of the present paper.     

Stability of plane-parallel convective fluid flow in a horizontal layer relative to spatial perturbations

The stability of stationary plane-parallel convective flow between horizontal planes along which a constant temperature gradient is given, is investigated relative to spatial perturbations. It is shown that the flow crisis is caused by spiral perturbations in a broad range of Prandtl number values (P > 0.24). Spiral perturbations are developed in unstably stratified fluid layers adjoining the upper and lower layer boundaries, and are of Rayleigh nature.     

Stability of two-layer systems with respect to convective mixing

The occurrence and development of convection in a two-layer system heated below has been investigated [1–5] under the assumption that the interface of the fluids is horizontal and is not subject to deformations. However, this assumption may not be satisfied if the surface tension on the interface is small and the fluids have either nearly equal densities or the heavier fluid is situated at the top. In the present paper, an attempt is made to study the convection regimes in a two-layer system with deformation of the interface when there is heating from below or above. The simultaneous influence of the convective and Rayleigh-Taylor instability mechanisms is taken into account; the surface tension on the interface is assumed to be infinitesimally small, and thermocapillary effects are ignored. A two-fluid variant of the method of markers and cells [6–9] is used for the numerical solution of the convection equations. A diagram of the regimes is constructed. It is shown that depending on the values of the parameters the system either preserves its two-layer structure, or the development of the conveetive motion leads to the breakup of the interface and complete mixing of the fluids.     

Stability of a supersonic boundary layer with respect to three-dimensional disturbances

The stability of a supersonic boundary layer over an intensively cooled plate with respect to three-dimensional disturbances is investigated. Two neutral stability curves, the existence of which was established in [1], are contemplated. It is shown by asymptotic analysis that each of these two neutral stability curves separates into a closed and an ordinary neutral curve in a certain range of disturbance propagation angles. As the surface is cooled, the closed neutral curve contracts to a point. The results of asymptotic analysis were confirmed by numerical integration of the stability equations.     

Stability of a nonorthogonal stagnation flow to three-dimensional disturbances

A similarity solution for a low Mach number nonorthogonal flow impinging on a hot or cold plate is presented. For the constant-density case, it is known that the stagnation point shifts in the direction of the incoming flow and that this shift increases as the angle of attack decreases. When the effects of density variations are included, a critical plate temperature exists; above this temperature the stagnation point shifts away from the incoming stream as the angle is decreased. This flow field is believed to have applications to the reattachment zone of certain separated flows or to a lifting body at a high angle of attack. Finally, we examine the stability of this nonorthogonal flow to self-similar, three-dimensional disturbances. Stability characteristics of the flow are given as a function of the parameters of this study: ratio of the plate temperature to that of the outer potential flow and angle of attack. In particular, it is shown that the angle of attack can be scaled out by a suitable definition of an equivalent wave number and temporal growth rate, and the stability problem for the nonorthogonal case is identical to the stability problem for the orthogonal case. By use of this scaling, it can be shown that decreasing the angle of attack decreases the wave number and the magnitude of the temporal decay rate, thus making nonlinear effects important. For small wave numbers, it is shown that cooling the plate decreases the temporal decay of the least-stable mode, while heating the plate has the opposite effect. For moderate to large wave numbers, density variations have little effect except that there exists a range of cool plate temperatures for which these disturbances are extremely stable.This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under NASA Contract NAS1-18605 while the authors were in residence at the Institute for Compute Applications in Science and Engineering, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23665, U.S.A.     

Stability of a plane-parallel convective flow of a liquid in a horizontal layer

We consider the stationary plane-parallel convective flow, studied in [1], which appears in a two-dimensional horizontal layer of a liquid in the presence of a longitudinal temperature gradient. In the present paper we examine the stability of this flow relative to small perturbations. To solve the spectral amplitude problem and to determine the stability boundaries we apply a version of the Galerkin method, which was used earlier for studying the stability of convective flows in vertical and inclined layers in the presence of a transverse temperature difference or of internal heat sources (see [2]). A horizontal plane-parallel flow is found to be unstable relative to two critical modes of perturbations. For small Prandtl numbers the instability has a hydrodynamic character and is associated with the development of vortices on the boundary of counterflows. For moderate and for large Prandtl numbers the instability has a Rayleigh character and is due to a thermal stratification arising in the stationary flow.Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Mekhaniki i Tekhnicheskoi Fiziki, No. 1, pp. 95–100, January–February, 1974.     

Stability of stationary convective flow of a mixture in a vertical porous layer

In contrast to the corresponding viscous flow, the convective flow of a homogeneous liquid in a planar vertical layer whose boundaries are maintained at different temperatures is stable [1]. When a porous layer is saturated with a binary mixture, in the presence of potentially stable stratification one must expect an instability of thermal-concentration nature to be manifested. This instability mechanism is associated with the difference between the temperature and concentration relaxation times, which leads to a buoyancy force when an element of the fluid is displaced horizontally. In viscous binary mixtures, the thermal-concentration instability is the origin of the formation of layered flows, which have been studied in detail in recent years [2–4]. The convective instability of the equilibrium of a binary mixture in a porous medium was considered earlier by the present authors in [5]. In the present paper, the stability of stationary convective flow of a binary mixture in a planar vertical porous layer is studied. It is shown that in the presence of sufficient longitudinal stratification the flow becomes unstable against thermal-concentration perturbations; the stability boundary is determined as a function of the parameters of the problem.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 150–157, January–February, 1980.     

The effect of an acoustic field on a secondary convective flow in a layer

The effect of a traveling sonic wave on a convective flow in a horizontal layer with a fixed linear temperature distribution on the boundaries is investigated. Convective rolls with axes parallel to the basic flow (lengthwise rolls) are considered. On the basis of a weakly nonlinear analysis, it is shown that the lengthwise rolls appear smoothly and the regular flows are stable near the stability threshold. A direct numerical simulation is performed. Secondary near-critical flow regimes and regimes corresponding to finite supercriticalities are investigated.     

Stability of the flow in the wake behind a three-dimensional body

A study is made of the influence of a small deviation from axial symmetry of the flow in the wake behind a body on its stability. Such deviations occur, for example, in the wake behind a circular cone at an angle of attack. The problem is solved by the small-parameter method for an inviscid incompressible fluid. It is shown that deviation from axial symmetry has a strong effect on the flow stability.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 155–158, July–August, 1984.I thank G. I. Petrov and S. Ya. Gertsenshtein for supervision and assistance in this work.     

Effect of Joule dissipation on the convective instability of a conducting liquid with flow in a magnetic field

The results of [1] are extended to the case when the Joule dissipation leads to a nonlinear profile of the unperturbed temperature of the liquid. Convective instability of a conducting liquid, with flow in a magnetic field directed perpendicular to the flow, with a temperature-dependent distribution of the conductivity which is nonhomogeneous in the direction of action of the electromagnetic force, was discussed in [1], neglecting Joule dissipation. This type of approach permitted investigating an energy equation without electromagnetic terms, which to a certain degree facilitated the solution of the problem. In many cases, however, the Joule dissipation is considerable and may exert a considerable effect on the development of convective instability. Thus, without taking account of Joule evolution of heat, instability can arise only with positive values of the Rayleigh number, exceeding some critical value, while, at the same time, Joule dissipation may lead to a situation in which instability will develop also with negative values of the Rayleigh number, i.e., under conditions when the state without the evolution of Joule heat is absolutely stable.Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 19–22, January–February, 1972.     

Stability of piston flow motion in a traveling magnetic field

A formulation is given of the problem of the stability of piston-flow motion in a traveling magnetic field. It is shown that this question reduces to the problem of stability of motion in the presence of constantly acting perturbing forces. The second Lyapunov method is used as the basis to present the sufficient criteria for stability of the flow motion with respect to certain specified quantities.     

A method for automatic particle tracking in a three-dimensional flow field

A technique has been developed whereby the three-dimensional motion of tracers in a fluid flow is automatically analysed. Simultaneous orthogonal views of the tracer-seeded flow were recorded by a single high speed cine camera through a split field mirror system, and subsequently converted to machine readable form by a video digitizer. Digital enhancement was used to separate the tracers from the contrasting background. Algorithms were developed to match the projections of individual tracers in the two views, obtain the three-dimensional coordinates, follow the tracers from frame to frame and compute the velocity vectors along the particle trajectories. Eulerian information was derived from the pooled velocity data points by interpolation on a regular spatial grid. Tests of the method on particle trajectories obtained in a small water tunnel have shown that the tracking is reliable even for rapidly changing and closely spaced paths.     

Numerical investigation of the first transition in the three-dimensional problem of convective flow in a porous medium

The branching off of steady-state regimes from mechanical equilibrium is studied for the problem of filtration convection in a parallelepiped. The conditions for the geometric parameters under which stable continuous families of steady-state regimes develop are found. The stability of equilibria of the family with respect to three-dimensional perturbations is analyzed in a numerical experiment using a finite-difference method.     

Stability of the convective flow in an inclined layer with heat release at its center

The flow of a viscous incompressible fluid in a plane infinite inclined layer in the presence of internal heat sources concentrated on its axis is considered. The stability of the plane-parallel motion is investigated, the neutral curves are plotted, and the stability regions are determined. The results are compared with the case of uniform distribution of the heat sources. Supercritical fluid flows are calculated numerically.     

Stability of convective viscous fluid flow in porous and free vertical layers

The linear stability of convection in a system consisting of a vertical layer of fluid and an adjacent layer of porous medium saturated with that fluid is investigated. The fluid and the porous medium are bounded by isothermal surfaces heated to different temperatures.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 3–9, September–October, 1990.The author wishes to thank G. Z. Gershuni for supervising the work and D. V. Lyubimov for useful discussions.