ON THE STARTING PROCESS OF STRONGLY NONLINEAR VORTEX RAYLEIGH-WAVE INTERACTIONS

An oncoming two-dimensional laminar boundary layer that develops an un stable inflection point and becomes three-dimensional is described by the Hall-Smith (1991) vortex/wave interaction equations. These equatio ns are now examined in the neighbourhood of the position where the cri tical surface starts to form. A consistent structure is established in which an inviscid core flow is matched to a viscous buffer-layer solu tion where the appropriate jump condition on the transverse shear stre ss is satisfied. The final result is a bifurcation equation for the (c onstant) amplitude of the wave pressure. A representative classical ve locity profile is considered to illustrate solutions of this equation for a range of values of the wave-numbers.