THE HIGH-SPEED FLOW STABILITY (HSFS) SOFTWARE PACKAGE FOR STABILITY ANALYSIS OF COMPRESSIBLE BOUNDARY LAYERS

Abstract

An applied software package, the high-speed flow stability (HSFS) solver, is developed to analyze the stability of compressible boundary layers over streamlined bodies of practical configurations. The methodology used to compute the Reynolds numbers for the onset of a laminar-to-turbulent transition is based on linear stability theory and the semi-empirical eN-method. Analysis of unstable wave packets in direct numerical simulations of the transitional boundary layers is based on the expansion of an arbitrary disturbance into a biorthogonal eigenfunction system. The numerical methods are verified in a wide range of free stream Mach and Reynolds numbers. At subsonic speeds the transition Reynolds numbers are computed for straight and swept wings. At supersonic speeds the results of computations for sharp cones at zero angle of attack are presented. At hypersonic speeds the onset of the transition is predicted for blunted cones. For all of cases under consideration, a comparison of the experimental data and computations from previous studies is provided.