Interactions Between Propagating Wakes and Flow Instabilities in the Presence of a Laminar Separation Bubble Available to Purchase

Laminar separation was investigated experimentally on a flat plate under a strongly diffusing self-similar pressure distribution. This gave a long and thin laminar separation bubble. Boundary layer velocity traverses were performed at numerous longitudinal stations. Using a single hot wire a combination of individual traces, phase averaging and time averaging was used. To supplement this, an array of microphones was installed to give instantaneous contours of pressure perturbation and to investigate the time dependent flow features. Microphone data were consistent with the strong amplification, under the adverse pressure gradient, of instabilities predicted far upstream of the separation point. Driven at the Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) frequency, these instabilities grew into turbulent spots developing in the shear layer of the separation bubble. Reattachment of the bubble was caused by transition of the separated shear layer. The waves were strongest in the later stages of transition. Once the coherence was lost, in a turbulent layer, the amplitude became diminished. Wake disturbances were injected into the flow and traced through the flow field. The wake interaction resulted in turbulent patches which penetrated to the wall. Following the patches was the calmed region, detectable as a region of reduced wave activity in the transition region following each turbulent strip. For a short time at the end of the calmed region the viscous instability waves continued to propagate for a considerable distance downstream, in concert with the calmed region, in an otherwise turbulent zone.