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Distortion of a flat-plate boundary layer by free-stream vorticity normal to the plate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2006

M. E. Goldstein ,
S. J. Leib  and
S. J. Cowley
M. E. Goldstein
Affiliation:
Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH 44135, USA
S. J. Leib
Affiliation:
Sverdrup Technology, Inc. Lewis Research Center Group, Brook Park, OH 44142, USA
S. J. Cowley
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW, UK
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Abstract

We consider a nominally uniform flow over a semi-infinite flat plate. Our analysis shows how a small streamwise disturbance in the otherwise uniform flow ahead of the plate is amplified by leading-edge bluntness effects and eventually leads to a small-amplitude but nonlinear spanwise motion far downstream from the leading edge of the plate. This spanwise motion is then imposed on the viscous boundary-layer flow at the surface of the plate – causing an order-one change in its profile shape. This ultimately reduces the wall shear stress to zero – causing the boundary layer to undergo a localized separation, which may be characterized as a kind of bursting phenomenon that could be related to the turbulent bursts observed in some flat-plate boundary-layer experiments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 237 , April 1992 , pp. 231 - 260
Copyright
© 1992 Cambridge University Press

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