27th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 19 - 24 September 2010, Nice, France
Paper ICAS 2010-3.9.1

DIRECT TRANSITION TO TURBULENCE IN A 3D BOUNDARY LAYER

B. Viaud, E. Serre*, J. M. Chomaz**
CReA (French Air Force), France; *M2P2 (CNRS), France; **LadHyX (CNRS), France

Keywords: boundary layer, transition, global mode

This paper presents the numerical investigation of the transition to turbulence, for the three-dimensional boundary layer above a rotating disk, which presents an inflectional crossflow analogous to the one encountered over swept wings. Absolute instability is shown to induce a cascade of two nonlinear global modes, which promotes turbulence.

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