Quantitative study of localized mechanisms of excitation of cross-flow instability modes in a swept-wing boundary layer

Abstract

An experimental study of two efficient receptivity mechanisms of excitation of cross-flow (CF) instability modes is carried out in a boundary layer of a real airfoil section of a swept wing due to: (i) action of localized surface vibrations, and (ii) scattering of 2D freestream vortices on them. It is found that the two mechanisms lead to rather efficient excitation of CF-modes both at surface vibration frequency and at combination 'vortex-vibration' frequencies. First estimations of the corresponding localized receptivity coefficients are obtained. Direct comparison of the experimental amplification curves of the excited CF-modes with those calculated based on the linear stability theory (LST) has shown that the experimental data obtained at vibration frequency are in excellent agreement with the LST. At the same time, growth rates of the CF-modes excited at combination frequencies are found to be completely inconsistent with the LST. A possible explanation of this phenomenon via action of a new efficient distributed receptivity mechanism is suggested. This mechanism is associated with scattering of freestream vortices on rather high-amplitude CF-modes excited by surface vibrations.