THE INTERACTING BOUNDARY-LAYER FLOW DUE TO A VORTEX APPROACHING A CYLINDER

In this paper the solution to the three-dimensional and unsteady inter acting boundary-layer equations for a vortex approaching a cylinder is calculated. The flow is three-dimensional and unsteady. The purpose o f this paper is to enhance the understanding of the structure in three -dimensional unsteady boundary-layer separation commonly observed in a high-Reynolds-number flow. The short length scales associated with th e boundary-layer eruption process are resolved through an efficient an d effective moving adaptive grid procedure. The results of this work s uggest that like its two-dimensional counterpart, the three-dimensiona l unsteady interacting boundary layer also terminates in a singularity at a finite time. Furthermore, the numerical calculations confirm the theoretical analysis of the singular structure in two dimensions for the interacting boundary layer due to Smith (1988).