Prehistory of Instability in a Hypersonic Boundary Layer

Abstract.

The initial phase of hypersonic boundary-layer transition comprising excitation of boundary-layer modes and their downstream evolution from receptivity regions to the unstable region (instability prehistory problem) is considered. The disturbance spectrum reveals the following features: (1) the first and second modes are synchronized with acoustic waves near the leading edge; (2) further downstream, the first mode is synchronized with entropy and vorticity waves; (3) near the lower neutral branch of the Mack second mode, the first mode is synchronized with the second mode. Disturbance behavior in Regions (2) and (3) is studied using the multiple-mode method accounting for interaction between modes due to mean-flow nonparallel effects. Analysis of the disturbance behavior in Region 3) provides the intermodal exchange rule coupling input and output amplitudes of the first and second modes. It is shown that Region (3) includes branch points at which disturbance group velocity and amplitude are singular. These singularities can cause difficulties in stability analyses. In Region (2), vorticity/entropy waves are partially swallowed by the boundary layer. They may effectively generate the Mack second mode near its lower neutral branch.