A NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE SPATIAL STABILITY OF 3-DIMENSIONAL DEVELOPING PLANE MIXING LAYER

This paper is concerned with the hydrodynamic stability of the free sh ear layer, The concern of this study lies in obtaining solutions for t he viscous spatially three-dimensional stability corresponding to the classical self-similar velocity profile of the free shear layer, In th is study several techniques are applied to resolve the serious numeric al complication introduced by the finite domain and parasitic contamin ation of the solution. As the spanwise wave number decreases, the neut ral stability occurs at higher frequencies, beta, The maximum amplific ation rate (-alpha(imax)) increases when spanwise wave number decrease s. The decrease of -alpha(imax) with gamma at a fixed Reynolds number is quite linear with the exception of low spanwise wave number (gamma less than or equal to 0.2).