On stability and receptivity of boundary-layer flows

Abstract: This work is concerned with stability and receptivity analysis as well as studies on control of the laminar-turbulent transition in boundary-layer flows through direct numerical simulations. Various flow configurations are considered to address flow around straight and swept wings. The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of stability characteristics and different means of transition control of such flows which are of great interest in aeronautical applications.Acoustic receptivity of flow over a finite-thickness flat plate with elliptic leading edge is considered. The objective is to compute receptivity coefficient defined as the relative amplitude of acoustic disturbances and TS wave. The existing results in the literature for this flow case plot a scattered image and are inconclusive. We have approached this problem in both compressible and incompressible frameworks and used high-order numerical methods. Our results have shown that the generally-accepted level of acoustic receptivity coefficient for this flow case is one order of magnitude too high.The continuous increase of computational power has enabled us to perform global stability analysis of three-dimensional boundary layers. A swept flat plate of FSC type boundary layer with surface roughness is considered. The aim is to determine the critical roughness height for which the flow becomes turbulent. Global stability characteristics of this flow have been addressed and sensitivity of such analysis to domain size and numerical parameters have been discussed.The last flow configuration studied here is infinite swept-wing flow. Two numerical set ups are considered which conform to wind-tunnel experiments where passive control of crossflow instabilities is investigated. Robustness of distributed roughness elements in the presence of acoustic waves have been studied. Moreover, ring-type plasma actuators are employed as virtual roughness elements to delay laminar-turbulent transition.