Characterization of acoustic disturbances in linearly sheared flows

The equation describing the plane wave propagation, the stability, or the rectangular duct mode characteristics in a compressible inviscid linearly sheared parallel, but otherwise homogeneous, flow, is shown to be reducible to Whittaker's equation. The resulting solutions, which are real, viewed as functions of two variables, depend on a parameter and an argument the values of which have precise physical meanings depending on the problem. The exact solutions in terms of Whittaker functions are used to obtain a number of known results of plane wave propagation and stability in linearly sheared flows as limiting cases in which the speed of sound goes to infinity (incompressible limit) or the shear layer thickness, or wave number, goes to zero (vortex sheet limit). The usefulness of the exact solutions is then discussed in connection with the problems of plane wave propagation and stability of a finite thickness shear layer with a linear velocity profile. With respect to the plane wave propagation it is shown that, unlike the compressible vortex sheet, the shear layer possesses no resonances and no Brewster angles, whereas with respect to the stability problem it is shown that, again unlike the compressible vortex sheet, the thin layer is unstable to long wavelength disturbances for all Mach numbers. These results imply that the reflection and stability characteristics of a non-zero thickness but thin shear layer (i.e., the long wavelength characteristics) do not go over smoothly into the results of the compressible vortex sheet as the wave number approaches zero, except for a limited range of generally subsonic relative flow of the two parallel streams bounding the shear layer.