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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

Secondary Instability of Second Modes in Hypersonic Boundary Layers

Second mode disturbances dominate the primary instability stage of transition in a number of hypersonic flow configurations. The highest amplification rates of second mode disturbances are usually associated with 2D (or axisymmetric) perturbations and, therefore, a likely scenario for the onset of the three-dimensionality required for laminar-turbulent transition corresponds to the parametric amplification of 3D secondary instabilities in the presence of 2D, finite amplitude second mode disturbances. The secondary instability of second mode disturbances is studied for selected canonical flow configurations. The basic state for the secondary instability analysis is obtained by tracking the linear and nonlinear evolution of 2D, second mode disturbances using nonlinear parabolized stability equations. Unlike in previous studies, the selection of primary disturbances used for the secondary instability analysis was based on their potential relevance to transition in a low disturbance environment and the effects of nonlinearity on the evolution of primary disturbances was accounted for. Strongly nonlinear effects related to the self-interaction of second mode disturbances lead to an upstream shift in the upper branch neutral location. Secondary instability computations confirm the previously known dominance of subharmonic modes at relatively small primary amplitudes. However, for the Purdue Mach 6 compression cone configuration, it was shown that a strong fundamental secondary instability can exist for a range of initial amplitudes of the most amplified second mode disturbance, indicating that the exclusive focus on subharmonic modes in the previous applications of secondary instability theory to second mode primary instability may not have been fully justified.

Li, Fei↗
NASA NTRS2015

Receptivity of Hypersonic Boundary Layers to Acoustic and Vortical Disturbances (Invited)

Boundary-layer receptivity to two-dimensional acoustic and vortical disturbances for hypersonic flows over two-dimensional and axi-symmetric geometries were numerically investigated. The role of bluntness, wall cooling, and pressure gradients on the receptivity and stability were analyzed and compared with the sharp nose cases. It was found that for flows over sharp nose geometries in adiabatic wall conditions the instability waves are generated in the leading-edge region and that the boundary layer is much more receptive to slow acoustic waves as compared to the fast waves. The computations confirmed the stabilizing effect of nose bluntness and the role of the entropy layer in the delay of boundary layer transition. The receptivity coefficients in flows over blunt bodies are orders of magnitude smaller than that for the sharp cone cases. Wall cooling stabilizes the first mode strongly and destabilizes the second mode. However, the receptivity coefficients are also much smaller compared to the adiabatic case. The adverse pressure gradients increased the unstable second mode regions.

Balakumar, P.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Optimal Growth in Hypersonic Boundary Layers

The linear form of the parabolized linear stability equations is used in a variational approach to extend the previous body of results for the optimal, nonmodal disturbance growth in boundary-layer flows. This paper investigates the optimal growth characteristics in the hypersonic Mach number regime without any high-enthalpy effects. The influence of wall cooling is studied, with particular emphasis on the role of the initial disturbance location and the value of the spanwise wave number that leads to the maximum energy growth up to a specified location. Unlike previous predictions that used a basic state obtained from a self-similar solution to the boundary-layer equations, mean flow solutions based on the full Navier-Stokes equations are used in select cases to help account for the viscous- inviscid interaction near the leading edge of the plate and for the weak shock wave emanating from that region. Using the full Navier-Stokes mean flow is shown to result in further reduction with Mach number in the magnitude of optimal growth relative to the predictions based on the self-similar approximation to the base flow.

Navier Stokes equations↗
NASA NTRS1996

Nonlinear spatial evolution of inviscid instabilities on hypersonic boundary layers

The spatial development of an initially linear vorticity-mode instability on a compressible flat-plate boundary layer is considered. The analysis is done in the framework of the hypersonic limit where the free-stream Mach number M approaches infinity. Nonlinearity is shown to become important locally, in a thin critical layer, when sigma, the deviation of the phase speed from unity, becomes o(M(exp -8/7)) and the magnitude of the pressure fluctuations becomes 0(sigma(exp 5/2)M(exp 2)). The unsteady flow outside the critical layer takes the form of a linear instability wave but with its amplitude completely determined by the nonlinear flow within the critical layer. The coupled set of equations which govern the critical-layer dynamics reflect a balance between spatial-evolution, (linear and nonlinear) convection and nonlinear vorticity-generation terms. The numerical solution to these equations shows that nonlinear effects produce a dramatic reduction in the instability-wave amplitude.

Wundrow, David W.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Goertler vortices in supersonic and hypersonic boundary layers

The problem of Goertler vortices in compressible boundary layers over concave walls is considered. At O(1) wavelengths, the instability is governed by parabolic partial differential equations that are solved numerically to determine the effect of various initial conditions on the development of Goertler vortex instability in compressible boundary layers. The results show that both the velocity and temperature fluctuations may lead to a Goertler vortex. The vortex growth rates determined from the present method are found to differ somewhat from those given by a normal mode solution. At both the supersonic and hypersonic Mach numbers, cooling has a small destabilizing effect. In addition, the most unstable disturbances shift toward lower wavelengths because of thinning of the boundary layer. The results also show that compressibility has a stabilizing effect on the Goertler instability, while the effect of an adverse pressure gradient is found to be destabilizing. The behavior of the Goertler vortex structure with Mach number is also examined. At hypersonic Mach numbers, vortices are located near the edge of the boundary layer for adiabatic wall conditions. However, the entire boundary layer is affected when the wall is cooled.

Spall, R. E.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Stabilization of Hypersonic Boundary Layers by Linear and Nonlinear Optimal Perturbations

The effect of stationary, finite-amplitude, linear and nonlinear optimal perturbations on the modal disturbance growth in a Mach 6 axisymmetric flow over a 7 deg. half-angle cone with 0:126 mm nose radius and 0:305 m length is investigated. The freestream parameters (M = 6, Re(exp 1) = 18 x 10(exp. 6) /m) are selected to match the flow conditions of a previous experiment in the VKI H3 hypersonic tunnel. Plane-marching parabolized stability equations are used in conjunction with a partial-differential equation based planar eigenvalue analysis to characterize the boundary layer instability in the presence of azimuthally periodic streaks. The streaks are observed to stabilize nominally planar Mack mode instabilities, although oblique Mack mode and first-mode disturbances are destabilized. Experimentally measured transition onset in the absence of any streaks correlates with an amplification factor of N = 6 for the planar Mack modes. For high enough streak amplitudes, the transition threshold of N = 6 is not reached by the Mack mode instabilities within the length of the cone; however, subharmonic first-mode instabilities, which are destabilized by the presence of the streaks, do reach N = 6 near the end of the cone. The highest stabilization is observed at streak amplitudes of approximately 20 percent of the freestream velocity. Because the use of initial disturbance profiles based on linear optimal growth theory may yield suboptimal control in the context of nonlinear streaks, the computational predictions are extended to nonlinear optimal growth theory. Results show that by using nonlinearly optimal perturbation leads to slightly enhanced stabilization of plane Mack mode disturbances as well as reduced destabilization of subharmonic first-mode disturbances.

Incompressible boundary layer↗
NASA NTRS1975

Mean and fluctuating flow measurements of a fully-developed, non-adiabatic, hypersonic boundary layer

Extensive boundary-layer measurements have been made on a cone-ogive-cylinder model at a free-stream Mach number of 7.0 and momentum-thickness Reynolds number of 8500. Mean flow transformations and calculated turbulence correlations are presented which are in good agreement with previous incompressible results. New quantitative turbulence measurements including measurements of the first higher moment and probability density of fluctuations in mass flow and total temperature in hypersonic flow are also presented. The higher moment and probability density data show that the characters of the fluctuation modes of the mass flow and total temperature are significantly different in the wall region and in the outer part of the boundary layer. These differences together with data on the turbulence scale and lifetime obtained from autocorrelation and space-time correlation measurements are discussed.

Owen, F. K.↗
NASA NTRS1992

An experimental study of a cold-wall hypersonic boundary layer

The boundary layer that developed on a one-meter long flat plate at a nominal Mach number of 8 and a Reynolds number of 10.2 million per meter was studied using a shock tunnel. The wall-to-stagnation temperature ratio was 0.35. The turbulent velocity profiles possessed very small wake components. The small wake component is characteristic of low Reynolds number flows and may indicate that a turbulent boundary layer was not fully developed. The magnitude of the surface pressure fluctuations in the turbulent part of the flow was found to be in agreement with semi-empirical predictions. These fluctuations were larger than those obtained at lower supersonic Mach numbers and indicated that pressure fluctuations may not be neglected at hypersonic Mach numbers. The fluctuations also possessed a convection velocity that increased with transducer spacing and followed the trend of previous investigations.

Chung, Kung-Ming↗
NASA NTRS1974

Wind tunnel experiments relating to supersonic and hypersonic boundary layer transition

Hot-wire anemometry is used to study the origin and growth of 'natural' fluctuations in zero pressure gradient boundary layers and the location of transition to turbulence for several Mach numbers between 1.6 and 8.5. The importance to transition of certain physical mechanisms is examined through comparison of the fluctuation growth with the sound-forcing and stability theories of Mack. The mechanisms are shown to assume varying importance in low supersonic, high supersonic and hypersonic regimes. The effect on transition of cone angle of attack, tip heating, and model vibration is mentioned.

Kendall, J. M.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Nonlinear Görtler Vortices and Their Secondary Instability in a Hypersonic Boundary Layer

Nonlinear development of the Görtler instability over a concave surface gives rise to a highly distorted inflectional flow field in the boundary layer that leads to both wall-normal and spanwise gradients in the flow. Such nonlinear structures are susceptible to strong, high-frequency secondary instabilities that may lead to the onset of laminar-turbulent transition. The present numerical study uses direct numerical simulations and linear secondary instability theory to investigate finite amplitude Görtler vortices and their secondary instability characteristics, respectively, in the hypersonic flow over an axisymmetric cone with a concave aft body. To complement previous studies in the literature wherein the Görtler instability was usually studied for a flat plate and initiated at some upstream location by imposing an eigenfunction as the inflow condition or by blowing and suction at the wall, the present investigation is focused on fully realizable Görtler instability that is excited by an azimuthally periodic array of surface protuberances. Furthermore, while the previous work had mostly focused on the secondary instability of Görtler vortices with cross-plane velocity contours that resembled bell-shaped structures, the present results confirm that fully developed mushroom structures also exist in the hypersonic regime when the Görtler vortex amplitude is sufficiently large. Computations further reveal that the dominant modes of secondary instability in these mushroom-shaped structures correspond to an antisymmetic (i.e., sinuous) “stem” mode that concentrates within the strong, nearly wall-normal internal shear layers surrounding the stem regions underneath the caps of the mushroom structures. Additionally, there exist a multitude of other significantly unstable secondary instability modes of both symmetric and antisymmetric types. Analogous to the secondary instability of crossflow vortices in hypersonic flows, secondary instability modes of both symmetric and antisymmetric types. Analogous to the secondary instability of crossflow vortices in hypersonic flows, secondary instability modes originating from the Mack mode instability play an important role during the nonlinear breakdown process.

Laminar turbulent transition↗
DOE OSTI2024

Inverse-Velocity Transformation Wall Model for Reacting Turbulent Hypersonic Boundary Layers

The present study builds on prior work by taking advantage of the novel framework proposed by Griffin et al. (hereafter referred to as the GFM) as a baseline. The model is progressively extended to multicomponent reacting mixtures, accounting for differential diffusion and finite-rate chemistry in a similar fashion to Di Renzo & Urzay and Di Renzo et al. The accuracy of the present approach, as well the prior model of Di Renzo & Urzay, is assessed in an a priori sense for the first time in a turbulent reacting boundary layer, using the boundary-layer data of Williams et al. Five species are included in the present analysis, i.e., N s = 5, namely N 2 , O 2 , NO, N and O, a neutral mixture most representative of dissociation/recombination phenomena for temperatures below 6000 K. A schematic of a flow over a wedge representative of the described configuration is presented in Figure 1. The brief is organized as follows: In Section 2, the wall-model equations and the computational framework are presented. In Section 3, the a priori results of the proposed model are described and compared to the extended EWM. Finally, in Section 4, some conclusions are offered.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1972

Displacement interaction and surface curvature effects on hypersonic boundary layers.

The title problem was studied employing implicit finite-difference methods to obtain numerical solutions to a composite set of boundary-layer equations valid to second order. Results are given for flow up a two-dimensional cubic compression ramp for free-stream Mach numbers of 6, 8, and 12.25 and for free-stream Re/inch equal to 85,800 and 25,800 at a wall-to-stagnation temperature ratio of 0.223. Comparisons with independent theories and experimental results are given. Nonsingular separation was produced at a free-stream Mach number of 12.25. For all cases considered, displacement and curvature effects canceled one another when a consistent treatment of inviscid and viscous curvature corrections was employed - the second-order theory virtually reproducing the first-order results.

Wornom, S. F.↗
NASA NTRS1972

High enthalpy hypersonic boundary layer flow

A theoretical and experimental study of an ionizing laminar boundary layer formed by a very high enthalpy flow (in excess of 12 eV per atom or 7000 cal/gm) with allowance for the presence of helium driver gas is described. The theoretical investigation has shown that the use of variable transport properties and their respective derivatives is very important in the solution of equilibrium boundary layer equations of high enthalpy flow. The effect of low level helium contamination on the surface heat transfer rate is minimal. The variation of ionization is much smaller in a chemically frozen boundary layer solution than in an equilibrium boundary layer calculation and consequently, the variation of the transport properties in the case of the former was not essential in the integration. The experiments have been conducted in a free piston shock tunnel, and a detailed study of its nozzle operation, including the effects of low levels of helium driver gas contamination has been made. Neither the extreme solutions of an equilibrium nor of a frozen boundary layer will adequately predict surface heat transfer rate in very high enthalpy flows.

Yanow, G.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Development of an effusive inlet for mass spectrometric gas analysis of hypersonic boundary layer

The use of a microchannel plate (MCP) as a mass spectrometer inlet device to allow nonintrusive sampling of flight vehicle boundary layers is investigated. Two possible configurations for mounting the inlet are studied: (1) flow coaxial with the channels; and (2) flow perpendicular to the channel axis. The test gases are pure Kr; pure Ne; and a mixture of 10 pct Kr, 10 pct Ne, and 80 pct N2. The pressure ranges studied vary from 500 to 10 microns. A mass discrimination at the quadrupole mass spectrometer is observed, indicating an enrichment in the heavier gas. Possible explanations for this enrichment are discussed. It is shown that an MCP is capable of acting as a nonintrusive sampling device. Further work that will enable quantitative determination of the species at the surface is discussed.

Brown, Kenneth G.↗