BY-PASS MECHANISM OF TRANSITION TO TURBULENCE

The by-pass mechanism of transition for a wall-bounded shear layer is explained for the case when an infinite row of convecting vortices migrate over a boundary layer at a specific speed range. Such a mechanism is important for noisy flows over bluff bodies, flows inside turbomachinery and flows over helicopter rotor blades. By solving the Navier–Stokes equation, it is shown that this by-pass transition is a consequence of vortices migrating at convection speeds that are significantly lower than the free-stream speed. This situation is commonly found in flows that are affected by the presence of periodic wakes. Whenever the speed of migrating vortices is in a certain critical range, there is a local instability of the underlying shear layer with a very high-growth rate as compared to the growth of pure Tollmien–Schlichting waves created by wall excitation. The above interpretation is supported by solving the linearized and full Navier–Stokes equation for disturbance quantities under the parallel flow approximation in two dimensions. Various ramifications of such a by-pass route of transition are discussed in this paper.