The boundary layers of an unsteady incompressible stagnation-point flow with mass transfer

In the current work, the boundary layers of an unsteady incompressible stagnation-point flow with mass transfer were further investigated. Similarity transformation technique was used and the similarity equation group was solved using numerical methods. Interesting observation is that there are multiple solutions seen for negative unsteadiness parameters, β. The influences of mass transfer, unsteadiness parameter, and Prandtl numbers on velocity and temperature profiles, wall drag, and wall heat fluxes were investigated and analyzed. The asymptotic behaviors for the similarity equations in limiting situations were theoretically analyzed. It is found that solutions exist for all mass transfer parameters for β≥−1. For a certain mass transfer parameter, there are two solutions when β_c<β<0; there is one solution for (β=β_c)∪(β≥0); there is no solution for β<β_c, where β_c is a critical unsteadiness parameter dependent on mass transfer parameter.     

Similarity solution of thermal boundary layers for laminar narrow axisymmetric jets

In this work, the similarity equation describing the thermal boundary layers of laminar narrow axisymmetric jets is derived based on boundary layer assumptions. The equation is solved exactly. Some properties of the thermal jet are discussed. By introducing new-defined non-dimensional coordinates, the similarity solution results in a “universal” format. The results can also be applied in the boundary layer problem of species diffusion.     

Numerical method for unsteady compressible boundary layers driven by compression or expansion wave

A numerical analysis is presented for the unsteady compressible laminar boundary layer driven by a compression or expansion wave. Approximate or series expansion methods have been used for the problems because of the characteristics of the governing equations, such as non-linearity, coupling with the thermal boundary layer equation and initial conditions. Here a transformation of the governing equations and the numerical linearization technique are introduced to deal with the difficulties. First, the governing equations are transformed for the initial conditions by Howarth and semisimilarity variables. These transformations reduce the number of independent variables from three to two and the governing equations from partial to ordinary differential equations at the initial point. Next, the numerical linearization technique is introduced for the non-linearity and the coupling with the thermal boundary layer equation. Because the non-linear terms are linearized without sacrifice of numerical accuracy, the solutions can be obtained without numerical iterations. Therefore the exact numerical solution, not approximate or series expansion, can be obtained. Compared with the approximate or series expansion method, this method is much improved. Results are compared with the series expansion solutions.     

Response of the boundary layer developing over a blunt-nosed flat plate to free-stream non-uniformities

The response of the boundary layer on a flat plate with blunt nose to infinitesimally small non-uniformity in the freestream velocity along the span has been studied. The non-uniformity was shown to excite boundary-layer disturbances similar to streaks or Klebanoff modes generally observed in experiments conducted with a high level of free-stream turbulence. The boundary layer disturbances have a predominantly streamwise velocity component and exhibit transient growth. In contrast to streaks generated by streamwise vortices impinging on the sharp nose of a plate, the disturbances produced by free-stream non-uniformity interaction with a blunt nose have a different level of growth. Their maximal amplification scales with the Reynolds number, based on the size of nose bluntness and is almost independent of the spanwise period of disturbances. This difference was shown to be caused by additional amplification of disturbances via vortex lines stretching around the leading edge.     

Anisotropy measurements in the boundary layer over a flat plate with suction

Laser Doppler velocity measurements are carried out in a turbulent boundary layer subjected to concentrated wall suction (through a porous strip). The measurements are taken over a longitudinal distance of 9× the incoming boundary layer thickness ahead of the suction strip. The mean and rms velocity profiles are affected substantially by suction. Two-point measurements show that the streamwise and wall-normal autocorrelations of the streamwise velocity are reduced by suction. It is found that suction alters the redistribution of the turbulent kinetic energy k between its components. Relative to the no-suction case, the longitudinal Reynolds stress contributes more to k than the other two normal Reynolds stresses; in the outer region, its contribution is reduced which suggests structural changes in the boundary layer. This is observed in the anisotropy of the Reynolds stresses, which depart from the non-disturbed boundary layer. With suction, the anisotropy level in the near-wall region appears to be stronger than that of the undisturbed layer. It is argued that the mean shear induced by suction on the flow is responsible for the alteration of the anisotropy. The variation of the anisotropy of the layer will make the development of a turbulence model quite difficult for the flow behind suction. In that respect, a turbulence model will need to reproduce well the effects of suction on the boundary layer, if the model is to capture the effect of suction on the anisotropy of the Reynolds stresses.     

Effect of electrohydrodynamic interaction on the stability of a flat plate laminar boundary layer

The stability of a unipolarly charged electrohydrodynamic boundary layer on a flat dielectric plate along which an electric current flows between electrodes located on the plate is investigated within the framework of the linear theory. The solution of the steady-state problem is obtained on the basis of methods developed earlier for conditions typical of aerodynamical experiments and various electric currents and electrode voltages. The effect of the interaction between perturbations of the electric and hydrodynamic flow parameters on the flow stability is estimated within the framework of the locally homogeneous approximation. This effect turns out to be insignificant under the conditions considered. It is shown that steady-state electrohydrodynamic action on the main flow makes it possible to obtain “accelerating” velocity profiles with increased absolute values of the second derivative in the transverse direction. This ensures a significant increase in the critical Reynolds numbers of loss of stability and a narrowing of the growing perturbation wavenumber range.     

Effects of the side walls on unsteady flow of a second grade fluid over a plane wall

The effects of the side walls on unsteady flow of a second grade fluid over a plan wall are considered. The solution of the governing equation for velocity is obtained by the sine transform method. This gives a correct result for the shear stress at the bottom wall. The shear stress at the bottom wall is minimum at the middle of the plate and it increases near the side walls. It is shown that the mean thickness of the layer of the liquid over the plate increases with time and the ratio of the mean thickness to the distance between the side walls becomes ultimately 0.2714.     

Instability waves in the wall region of a turbulent boundary layer on a flat plate

Coherent structures and the bursting phenomena in the wall region of a turbulent boundary layer play a very important role in determining the characteristics of the boundary layer. Yet the nature and the origin of the coherent structures are unclear until now. In this paper, nonlinear stability calculations for the wall region of a turbulent boundary layer have been made. It was found that there do exist instability waves which may be responsible for the coherent structures. The project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

On the effect of the nonparallelism of the boundary layer flow over a flat plate on its stability characteristics

The effect of the nonparallelism of the boundary layer flow over a flat plate on its stability characteristics has been investigated by several authors, and it was claimed that the results of the theoretical calculations are already in good agreement with the experimental observations. However, this is not true. In this paper, this problem is reinvestigated, using two different methods. It is found that within the framework of linear theory, the theoretical results are in fact not in good agreement with the experimental observations. To settle this problem, nonlinear effect must be taken into consideration. Projects Supported by the Science Fund of the Chinese Academy of Sciences     

DNS of heat transfer in transitional, accelerated boundary layer flow over a flat plate affected by free-stream fluctuations

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of flow over and heat transfer from a flat plate affected by free-stream fluctuations were performed. A contoured upper wall was employed to generate a favourable streamwise pressure gradient along a large portion of the flat plate. The free-stream fluctuations originated from a separate LES of isotropic turbulence in a box. In the laminar portions of the accelerating boundary layer flow the formation of streaks was observed to induce an increase in heat transfer by the exchange of hot fluid near the surface of the plate and cold fluid from the free-stream. In the regions where the streamwise pressure gradient was only mildly favourable, intermittent turbulent spots were detected which relaminarised downstream as the streamwise pressure gradient became stronger. The relaminarisation of the turbulent spots was reflected by a slight decrease in the friction coefficient, which converged to its laminar value in the region where the streamwise pressure gradient was strongest.     

The effects of variable specific heat on the stability of hypersonic boundary layer on a flat plate

The gas temperature within hypersonic boundary layer flow is so high that the specific heat of gas is no longer a constant but relates to temperature. How variable specific heat influences on boundary layer flow stability is worth researching. The effect of the variable specific heat on the stability of hypersonic boundary layer flows is studied and compared with the case of constant specific heat based on the linear stability theory. It is found that the variable specific heat indeed has some effects on the neutral curves of both the first-mode and the second-mode waves and on the maximum rate of growth also. Therefore, the relationship between specific heat and temperature should be considered in the study of the stability of the boundary layer.     

The hydromagnetic flow over an oscillating flat plate with arbitrary periodic oscillation

In this paper, the hydromagnetic flow over a flat plate with arbitrary periodic oscillation is solved exactly. The solution is also applicable for common incompressible viscous flow over a flat plate with arbitrary oscillation. It is found that the penetration of hydromagnetic flow will decrease with increasing non-dimensional magnetic parameter M. The transient part will die away after a certain time for a specific M. The solution will collapse into the steady-state case after a long time. However, for non-hydromagnetic flow, there will be no steady-state solution if the coefficient of the zero-frequency component is not zero.     

On unsteady motions of a second-order fluid over a plane wall

In this paper, three types of unsteady flows of second-order fluids are considered, namely, flow caused by impulsive motion of a flat plate, flow induced by a constantly accelerating plane and flow imposed by a flat plate that applies a constant tangential stress to the fluid. The previous attempts made regarding these problems, by using the Laplace transform, have failed. In this paper, the sine and the cosine transforms are used to solve these problems and exact solutions for the velocity distributions are found in terms of definite integrals. It is shown that these exact solutions satisfy the initial and the boundary conditions and the governing equation.     

Stability characteristics of laminar boundary layers over compliant walls

The stability characteristics of laminar boundary layers over compliant walls was studied by the linear theory. Unlike the previous authors, the coupled motion of the fluid and solid was required to satisfy the continuity conditions of both the velocity and stress at the interface. Results of calculations show that as the speed ratio or density ratio exceeds a certain threshold value, the two types of unstable waves will no longer be distinguishable, and the tangential component of the disturbance stress is no longer negligible. So the neglect of it, as the previous authors did, is unjustified. The project is supported by the National Natural Science Fundation of China.     

Symmetry groups and similarity analysis for boundary layer control over a wedge using electric forces

In this paper, we consider the control of laminar, incompressible boundary layer for the ionized air flow over a flat plate and wedges through the application of an electric field. Group theory is used to find equivalence transformations of the resulting boundary layer equations. These transformations in turn reveal forms of the electric field function which lead to reductions of the equations via similarity variables. Differences in boundary layer thickness growth and velocity profiles as well as wall shear stresses are shown for the specific choices of the electric field function. The effects of suction and blowing type of boundary conditions are also demonstrated. The applied electric fields lead to a thinning of boundary layer thickness and an increase in wall shear stress. They are also shown to stabilize the velocity component profiles and suppress flow separation in reentrant corners.     

Numerical prediction of turbulent boundary layer noise from a sharp-edged flat plate

An efficient hybrid uncorrelated wall plane waves–boundary element method (UWPW-BEM) technique is proposed to predict the flow-induced noise from a structure in low Mach number turbulent flow. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are used to estimate the turbulent boundary layer parameters such as convective velocity, boundary layer thickness, and wall shear stress over the surface of the structure. The spectrum of the wall pressure fluctuations is evaluated from the turbulent boundary layer parameters and by using semi-empirical models from literature. The wall pressure field underneath the turbulent boundary layer is synthesized by realizations of uncorrelated wall plane waves (UWPW). An acoustic BEM solver is then employed to compute the acoustic pressure scattered by the structure from the synthesized wall pressure field. Finally, the acoustic response of the structure in turbulent flow is obtained as an ensemble average of the acoustic pressures due to all realizations of uncorrelated plane waves. To demonstrate the hybrid UWPW-BEM approach, the self-noise generated by a flat plate in turbulent flow with Reynolds number based on chord Re_c = 4.9 × 10⁵ is predicted. The results are compared with those obtained from a large eddy simulation (LES)-BEM technique as well as with experimental data from literature.     

A note on unsteady flows of a viscoelastic fluid with the fractional Maxwell model between two parallel plates

The fractional calculus approach in the constitutive relationship model of viscoelastic fluid is introduced. A generalized Maxwell model with the fractional calculus was considered. Exact solutions of some unsteady flows of a viscoelastic fluid between two parallel plates are obtained by using the theory of Laplace transform and Fourier transform for fractional calculus. The flows generated by impulsively started motions of one of the plates are examined. The flows generated by periodic oscillations of one of the plates are also studied.     

An experimental research on the instability of natural convection boundary layer around a vertical heated flat plate

Experimental results on the instability of the isothermal naturalconvection boundary layer around a vertical heated flat plate are presented. It is demonstrated that the characteristics of the instability wave in the outer layer is consistent with the calculation of Brewster & Gebhart. After an initial growth of its low frequency components at the downstream side of the turning point of the neutral curve (Gr≈120) its comparatively higher frequency components develop and become turbulent subsequently with a buoyancy subrange in its power spectra. Simultaneously, in the measurement at the inner layer near the wall a viscous instability signal the same as the Tollmien-Schlichting waves in ordinary boundary layer and its subharmonics in a much higher frequency domain is discovered and an inertial subrange can be observed in the spectra atGr≈378.6. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (19572004)     

Analysis of the secondary stability of compressible boundary layer flows over a two-dimensional plate

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