Global Analysis of Open shear Flow Instabilities

Anubhav Dwivedi
ME-781 Final Presentation

21/11/2013

Introduction
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Open Shear Flows: Fluid particles enter and leave the domain
of interest in a finite time without being recycled

Prone to temporal and spatial instabilities: Waves which

travel along the stream and lead to formation of unsteady
vortical structures

Some fluid systems behave as oscillators and some as noise

amplifiers

Examples
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Noise Amplifiers: Co-flow mixing layers, homogeneous jets,

boundary layers on a flat plate etc.

Flow Oscillators: Swirling jets, mixing layers with large

counter flows etc.

Convective and Absolute Instabilities

Consider a parallel shear flow of given velocity profile with an
impulsive source for producing disturbance in space and time, then
the flow is:
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Convectively unstable: If a growing wavepacket produced in

response to the source is advected away.

Asolutely unstable: If the growing wave packet expands

around the source and contaminates the entire medium.

Comments
For flows which are invariant under Galilean transformation this
distinction doesnt make sense, but if we can single out a lab frame
then it holds true.

Absolute/Convective instabilities in parallel flows

A parallel shear flow: The velocity profile is extracted at a given
streamwise station x and it is replicated indefinitely upstream and
downstream to generate a strictly parallel shear flow.
I Consider the vorticity equation:
(

1 4

)2 =

t
y x
x y
Re

This is linearized using,

Z
(x, t) =

U(y 0 )dy 0 + (x, y , t)

Resulting in,
(

1 4

+ U(y ) )2 U(y )
=

t
x
x
Re

Orr-Sommerfeld and Dispersion Relation

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The normal mode solution of complex and k in the form

(x, y , t) = Re{(y )e i(kxt) }

This gives the famous Orr- Sommerfeld equation:

[U(y ) c][00 k 2 ] U 00 (y ) =

d2
1
( 2 k 2 )2
ikRe dy

If we assume the flow to be bounded by solid walls at

y =y1 ,y2 then
(y1 ) = (y2 ) = 0,
0 (y1 ) = 0 (y2 ) = 0

A non- trivial solution is admitted only if k, satisfy

dispersion relation
D(k, ; Re) = 0

Linear Impulse Response

I

Properties of normal modes sustained by a given parallel shear

flow U(y) is encapsulated in
D(k, ; R) = 0

Here R, is the set of control parameters.

We can consider this dispersion relation to be associated with
a PDE:

D(i , i ; R)(x, t) = S(x, t)

x t
Here S(x, t) is the forcing term.
To get the information of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the
perturbation field consider the impulse response defined by:
D(i

, i ; R)G (x, t) = (x)(t)

x t

Green function and absolute/convective instability

I

A flow is linearly stable if :

x
= const
t
t
The impulse response is then a decaying wavepacket.
The flow is linearly unstable if :
lim G (x, t) = 0

lim G (x, t) =

t
ray xt =

for atleast along one

const.
An unstable flow is convectively unstable if:
lim G (x, t) = 0

along the ray xt = 0

An unstable flow is absolutely unstable if:
lim G (x, t) =

along the ray

x
t

=0

Analysis in the Complex Plane

Analysis in the Fourier space is done to derive the condition on the
D(k, ) to study the dynamics of unstable waves supported by a
fluid system.
I The condition of causality :
S(x, t) = 0,

(x, t) = 0,

for

t<0

The perturbation field (x, t) can be expressed as:

Z Z
1
(k, )e i(kxt) dkd
(x, t) =
(2)2 L Fk

Where we know:
(k, ) =

S(k, )
D(k, )

The evaluation of the above integral is difficult in general for

any S(x, t), hence the behavior of Green function is observed.

Green Function and Stability criteria

The long time asymptotic form of the Green function is:
G (x, t)

exp(i[/4 + k x (k )t])
1
D
2
2
[k , (k )][2 k 2 (k )t]

Here,
x

(k ) =
k
t
I
I
I
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For an observer moving with this wavepacket with V = xt will

perceive a temporal growth rate of = ,i Vk,i .
The temporal growth rate(i (k)) displays a maximum over
real k i.e. i,max = i (kmax ) at a real kmax .
The corresponding group velocity /k(kmax ) Vmax is
necessarily real (because i /k(kmax ) = 0).
The zero group velocity condition
k (k0 ) = 0 defines k0 and
0 for absolute growth.

Global Analysis
To view stability of flows from a global perspective:
I There should be two distinct scales for the flow i.e. a typical
instability wavelength and a length scale characterizing the
streamwise non-uniformity of the flow say L, such that

=  << 1
L
I A consistent WKBJ should be implemented for governing
equations linearized around the streamwise developing basic
flow U = U(y ; X )ex + V (y ; X )ey , where X = x, both
V (y ; X ) and U(y ; X ) are assumed O(1).
I To simplify formulation, the flow is taken to be inviscid and
governed by the two dimensional vorticity equation:
(

0 2 0
0

)
=0
y X
X y y 2

Here,
U(y ; X ) =

0
,
y

V (y ; X ) =

0
X

WKBJ Analysis
I

The total streamfunction 0 is decomposed into basic and

fluctuating contributions:
(x, y , t) 0 (y ; X ) + (x, y , t)

Here,

The is now linearized, keeping only the terms with ,

2 U
2 U
2

+U(y ; X ) ]2 2
+[
+V
] = O(2 )
t
x
y x
X y y
y
(1)
Here, the O(1) term is the same term which is obtained after
linearization assuming parallel flow.

[
I

X = x

Comments
For 2-D inviscid flows the vorticity equation is:
[

0
0
+

]2 = 0
t
y x
x y

Eigenfunction calculation
I

We cant assume the perturbations to be in terms of modes

having constant wave number. Hence the following time
periodic form is assumed:
(x, y , t) = (y ; X )e i(

I
I

(X )
f


t)

Substituting the above form of perturbation into (1), thus

giving the governing equation for (y ; X ).
This can be easily viewed as applying the following
transformations to (1):

if ;
iX + 
t
x
X
The spatial distribution function (y ; X ) is expanded as:
(y ; X ) 1 (y ; X ) + 2 (y ; X ) + ....

Comments
Thus, the ansatz used here is valid only for a parallel and steady
base flow.

Governing Equations
I

At O(1), the governing equation for 1 is obtained as:

2
L[1 ] 000
1 X 1

U 00 (y ; X )
1 = 0
U(y ; X ) f /X

along with the exponential decay conditions at y = . This

is exactly the same as the Rayleigh equation.
The above similarity means X = k(X ; f ) and that x must
satisfy the dispersion relation.
Similarly for O()
L[2 ] = Q2 (y ; X )

The condition for the solvability will give an amplitude

evolution equation:
M(X )

dA
+ N(X )A = 0
dX

General Approach
Instability analysis of slowly diverging flows can be done from a
broader perspective
I

Equation 1 can be replaced by the partial differential operator:

D[i

, i ; X ] + D [i , i ; X ] = O(2 )
x t
x t

Using earlier analysis,

/t if ;

/x ik(X , f ) + /X

And assuming
1

(x, t) = (X )e i( 

RX
0

k(X ;f )dX f t)

with,
(X ) 1 (X ) + 2 (X ) + ....

Order one problem

I

, f ; X ]
X


D(k, f ; X ) i {Dk (k, f ; X )

+
Dk (k, f ; X )}
2
X
X
The governing equation for using the earlier substitution is
found to give the following O(1) problem:
D[k i

D(k, f ; X )1 (X ) = 0
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The above equation would imply, 1 (X ) = A(X )

Similarly, O() problem is:
D(k, f ; X )2 (X ) = iDk (k, f ; X )

dA
dX

i
Dkk (k, f ; X )kX A D (k, f ; X )A = 0
2

(2)

Global Mode
I

From equation 2, amplitude evolution equation is given by:

ik (k; X )

i Dkk (k, f ; X )
dA
{ +
kX }A = 0
dX
2 D (k, ; X )

Thus the final mode can be given as:

1

(x, t) A(X )e i( 

RX
0

k(X ;f )dX f t)

Note:
Dk
k = D
and DD , combined these two terms together

contribute to the evolution of the amplitude along the spatially

developing flow.

Ginzburg-Landau equation
The Ginzburg-Landau equation expressed as
(
I

2
+ U ) (1 + icd ) 2 = 0
t
x
x

This equation is seen to exhibit minimum structure necessary

to include effects of advection(U), dispersion(cd ) and
instability().
Applying the transformation /t i,/x ik leads to
the dispersion relation:
= Uk + cd k 2 + i( k 2 )

Using the absolute k0 and 0 we can rewrite it as

i

1
1
2

ikk k0
( kk k02 + 0 ) + kk 2 = 0
t
x
2
2
x

Global analysis of G-L equation

I

To mimic the stream-wise non-uniformity of the flow, the

absolute wavenumber k0 and the absolute frequency 0 and
kk , depend on the slow stream-wise variable X = x, thus
the linear complex G-L equation takes up the form
i

1
1
2

ikk (X )k0 (X ) ( kk k02 (X )+0 (X ))+ kk (X ) 2 = 0

t
x
2
2
x

Here the LHS corresponds to the D operator introduced

above(O(1) term).

The local linear dispersion relation is obtained from the

uniform counter part as
1
= 0 (X ) + kk (X )[k k0 (X )]2
2

References

1. Heurre,P. & Rossi,M. 1998 Hydrodynamic instabilities in open

flows, in Hydrodynamics and Nonlinear Instabilities,
pp.81-294, Cambridge University Press.
2. Heurre,P. & Monkewitz,P.A.1990 Local and Global
instabilities in spatially developing flows, Ann. Rev. Fluid
Mech. 22,473-537
3. Juniper,M.P. Tommisola,O. Lundell,F. 2011 The local and
Global analysis of confined planar wakes at intermediate
Reynolds number