Recently performed linear stability analyses suggested that transition could be delayed in hypersonic boundary layers by using an ultrasonically absorptive surface to damp the second mode (Mack mode). Boundary-layer transition experiments were performed on a sharp 5.06-deg half-angle round cone at zero angle of attack in the T5 Hypervelocity Shock Tunnel to test this concept. The cone was constructed with a smooth surface around half the cone circumference (to serve as a control) and an acoustically absorptive porous surface on the other half. Test gases investigated included nitrogen and carbon dioxide at M∞ ≃ 5 with specific reservoir enthalpy ranging from 1.3 to 13.0 MJ/kg and reservoir pressure ranging from 9.0 to 50.0 MPa. Comparisons were performed to ensure that previous results obtained in similar experiments (on a regular smooth surface) were reproduced, and the results were extended to examine the effects of the porous surface. These experiments indicated that the porous surface was highly effective in delaying transition provided that the pore size was significantly smaller than the viscous length scale.

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Experiments on passive hypervelocity boundary-layer control using an ultrasonically absorptive surface

In this paper, we continue to study the mechanisms of the receptivity of the supersonic boundary layer to free-stream disturbances by using both direct numerical simulation and linear stability theory. Specifically, the receptivity of a Mach 4.5 flow over a flat plate to free-stream fast acoustic waves is studied. The receptivity to free-stream slow acoustic waves, entropy waves and vorticity waves will be studied in the future. The oblique shock wave induced by the boundary-layer displacement plays an important role in the receptivity because the free-stream disturbance waves first pass through the shock before entering the boundary layer. A high-order shock-fitting scheme is used in the numerical simulations in order to account for the effects of interactions between free-stream disturbance waves and the oblique shock wave. The results show that the receptivity of the flat-plate boundary layer to free-stream fast acoustic waves leads to the excitation of both Mack modes and a family of stable modes, i.e. mode I, mode II, etc. It is found that the forcing fast acoustic waves do not interact directly with the unstable Mack modes. Instead, the stable mode I waves play an important role in the receptivity process because they interact with both the forcing acoustic waves and the unstable Mack-mode waves. Through the interactions, the stable mode I waves transfer wave energy from the forcing fast acoustic waves to the second Mack-mode waves. The effects of incident wave angles, forcing wave frequencies, and wall temperature perturbation conditions on the receptivity are studied. The results show that the receptivity mechanisms of the second mode are very different from those of modes I and II, which leads to very different receptivity properties of these discrete wave modes to free-stream fast acoustic waves with different incident wave angles, frequencies, and different wall boundary conditions. The maximum receptivities of the second mode, mode I and mode II to planar free-stream fast acoustic waves are obtained when incident wave angles approximately equal 26 ◦ ,4 5 ◦ , and 18 ◦ ,r espectively. The results of receptivity to a beam of free-stream fast acoustic waves show that the leading edge is one of the most efficient regions for receptivity.

Receptivity of a supersonic boundary layer over a flat plate. Part 2. Receptivity to free-stream sound

The boundary layer receptivity process generated by the interaction of 3-D slow and fast acoustic disturbances with a blunted flat plate, is numerically investigated at a freestream Mach number of 3.5, and at a high Reynolds number of 39 * 10 6 /m. The computations are performed with and without a 2-D isolated roughness element located near the leading edge. Both the steady and unsteady solutions are obtained by solving the full Navier-Stokes equations using the fifth-order accurate weighted essentially nonoscillatory scheme for space discretization and using the third-order total-variation-diminishing Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration. The simulations showed that the linear instability waves are generated very close to the leading edge. The wavelength of the disturbances inside the boundary layer first increases gradually and becomes longer than the wavelength for the instability waves within a short distance from the leading edge. The wavelength then decreases gradually and merges with the wavelength for the Tollmien-Schlichting wave. The initial amplitudes of the instability waves near the neutral points, the receptivity coefficients, are about 1.20 and 0.07 times the amplitude of the freestream disturbances for the slow and fast waves, respectively. It was also revealed that a small isolated roughness element does not enhance the receptivity process for the given nose bluntness.

Receptivity of a Supersonic Boundary Layer to Acoustic Disturbances

The transition process induced by the interaction of acoustic disturbances in the free-stream with boundary layers over a 5-degree straight cone and a wedge with blunt tips is numerically investigated at a free-stream Mach number of 6.0. To compute the shock and the interaction of shock with the instability waves the Navier-Stokes equations are solved in axisymmetric coordinates. The governing equations are solved using the 5th -order accurate weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme for space discretization and using third-order total-variation-diminishing (TVD) Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration. After the mean flow field is computed, acoustic disturbances are introduced at the outer boundary of the computational domain and unsteady simulations are performed. Generation and evolution of instability waves and the receptivity of boundary layer to slow and fast acoustic waves are investigated. The mean flow data are compared with the experimental results. The results show that the instability waves are generated near the leading edge and the non-parallel effects are stronger near the nose region for the flow over the cone than that over a wedge. It is also found that the boundary layer is much more receptive to slow acoustic wave (by almost a factor of 67) as compared to the fast wave.

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Receptivity of Hypersonic Boundary Layers Due to Acoustic Disturbances over Blunt Cone

Numerical simulations of turbulent spots in supersonic boundary layers: Effects of Mach number and wall temperature

The development of disturbances in a boundary layer that have been induced by an external acoustic field are investigated. The problem is considered in the linear formulation. It is shown that the oscillations inside the supersonic boundary layer can have several times the intensity of the external disturbances. The susceptibility of the boundary layer to the acoustic disturbances increases with increasing Mach number. Cooling of the surface leads to a small decrease in the intensity of the longitudinal velocity oscillations in the layer. The effect of the parameters of the acoustic wave is considered, i.e., the effect of the frequency and phase velocity on the development of the disturbances.

Interaction between a supersonic boundary layer and acoustic disturbances

A joint theoretical and experimental investigation of the influence of the surface permeability and roughness on the stability and laminar–turbulent transition of a supersonic flat-plate boundary layer at a free-stream Mach number of has been performed. Good quantitative agreement of the experimental data obtained with artificially generated disturbances performed on models with various porous inserts and calculations based on linear stability theory has been achieved. An increase of the pore size and porous-coating thickness leads to a boundary layer destabilization that accelerates the laminar–turbulent transition. It is shown that as a certain (critical) roughness value is reached, with an increase in the thickness of the rough and porous coating, the boundary layer stability diminishes and the laminar–turbulent transition is displaced towards the leading edge of the model.

Combined influence of coating permeability and roughness on supersonic boundary layer stability and transition

In the present study we investigate the stability of a boundary layer for the condition that the velocity perturbations at the permeable surface are nonzero. The stability for the boundary layer of an incompressible liquid in such a formulation was considered in [1]. For the case of subsonic velocities the effect of compressibility on the flow inside the boundary layer is weak, and in the present article this effect was neglected. The unsteady flow in narrow pores of a permeable covering depends strongly on the compressibility of the gas. Therefore, in the derivation of the relation connecting the pressure oscillations at the permeable surface with the oscillations of the flow through it, the effect of the compressibility was taken into consideration. It is shown that the boundary conditions, and therefore also the stability of the boundary layer at the permeable surface, depend considerably on the Mach number, even for a subsonic exterior flow.

Effect of gas compressibility on the stability of a boundary layer above a permeable surface at subsonic velocities

The effect of cooling of a permeable surface on the stability of a supersonic boundary layer on it is investigated. As distinct from the case of an impermeable surface, deep cooling can reduce the critical Reynolds number. Common points of the continuous and discrete spectra are found in the region of the disturbance parameters.

Stability of a supersonic boundary layer on a permeable surface with heat transfer

Stability of compressible three-dimensional boundary layers on a swept wing model is studied within the framework of the linear theory. The analysis based on the approximation of local self-similarity of the mean flow was performed within the Falkner-Skan-Cooke solution extended to compressible flows. The calculated characteristics of stability for a subsonic boundary layer are found to agree well with the measured results. In the case of a supersonic boundary layer, the results calculated for a Mach number M = 2 are also in good agreement with the measured spanwise scales of nonstationary vortices of the secondary flow. The calculated growth rates of disturbances, however, are substantially different from the measured values. This difference can be attributed to a high initial amplitude of disturbances generated in the experiment, which does not allow the linear stability theory to be applied. The evolution of natural disturbances with moderate amplitudes is fairly well predicted by the theory. The effect of compressibility on crossflow instability modes is demonstrated to be insignificant.

S. A. Gaponov

Papers

Interaction between a supersonic boundary layer and acoustic disturbances

Combined influence of coating permeability and roughness on supersonic boundary layer stability and transition

Effect of gas compressibility on the stability of a boundary layer above a permeable surface at subsonic velocities

Stability of a supersonic boundary layer on a permeable surface with heat transfer

Linear stability of three-dimensional boundary layers