Cd. Pruett et Ta. Zang, ON SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF INSTABILITY AND TRANSITION IN HIGH-SPEED BOUNDARY-LAYER FLOWS, Computing systems in engineering, 6(6), 1995, pp. 563-575
The simulation of instabilities and laminar-trubulent transition in hi
gh-speed boundary-layer flows represents one of the major computationa
l challenges of the decade. By taking advantage of recent advances in
computational science and instability theory for compressible flows, w
e have formulated an approach to this problem that combines parabolize
d stability equation (PSE) methodology with spatial direct numerical s
imulation (DNS). The relatively inexpensive PSE method is used to expl
ore the parameter space, to compute the early (weakly and moderately n
onlinear) stages of laminar breakdown, and to provide inflow condition
s for the spatial DNS, which is then used to compute the highly nonlin
ear laminar-breakdown stage. The approach is made feasible by an accur
ate and efficient DNS algorithm, which has been implemented in paralle
l on a GRAY C90 supercomputer. The design of the DNS algorithm is disc
ussed in detail, with emphasis on factors that affect both accuracy an
d efficiency. The method is applied to the investigation of the lamina
r breakdown of the boundary layer on an axisymmetric sharp cone in Mac
h 8 flow. Techniques for analysis of the resulting data are also addre
ssed, including novel computational flow imaging procedures.