Transition reversal over a blunt plate at Mach 5

TL;DR

This study computationally investigates the transition to turbulence over a Mach 5 blunt flat plate, revealing that nonmodal instabilities dominate transition, with streaky structures forming downstream of the nose and intermittent turbulent spots emerging.

Contribution

It is the first to reproduce the experimental reversal phenomenon and analyze the complete physical process, including receptivity, instabilities, and transition, over blunt plates at Mach 5.

Findings

Reproduction of transition reversal phenomenon in simulations.

Transition on blunt plates is driven by nonmodal instabilities, not classical modes.

Formation of streaky structures and turbulent spots downstream of the nose.

Abstract

In this work, the stability and transition to turbulence over a blunt flat plate with different leading-edge radii are investigated computationally. The freestream Mach number is 5, the unit Reynolds number is $6\times10^7$ m$^{-1}$, and the maximum nose-tip radius 3 mm exceeds the experimental reversal value. High-resolution numerical simulation and stability analysis are performed. Three-dimensional broadband perturbation is added on the farfield boundary to initiate the transition. The highlight of this work is that the complete physical process is considered, including the three-dimensional receptivity, linear and nonlinear instabilities, and transition. The experimental reversal phenomenon is favourably reproduced in the numerical simulation for the first time. Linear stability analysis shows that unstable first and second modes are absent in the blunt-plate flows owing to the presence of the entropy layer, although these modes are evident in the sharp-leading-edge case. Therefore, the transition on the blunt plate is due to nonmodal instabilities. Numerical results for all the blunt-plate cases reveal the formation of streamwise streaky structures downstream of the nose (stage I) and then the presence of intermittent turbulent spots in the transitional region (stage II). In stage I, a preferential spanwise wavelength of around 0.9 mm is selected for all the nose-tip radii, and low-frequency components are dominant. In stage II, high-frequency secondary instabilities appear to grow, which participate in the eventual breakdown. By contrast, leading-edge streaks are not remarkable in the sharp-leading-edge case, where transition is induced by oblique first and Mack second modes. The transition reversal beyond the critical nose-tip radius arises from an increasing magnitude of the streaky response in the early stage, while the transition mechanism keeps similar qualitatively.