Hydrodynamic stability theory and wall turbulence

摘要

This paper discusses the role of hydrodynamic stability theory in understanding wall bounded turbulent flows. Work in this area was pioneered by Malkus, followed by Reynolds and Tiederman and Reynolds and Hussain. The experimental results, and theoretical cum computational results of Reynolds and Hussain, were significant in many ways. Mainly, they highlighted the behaviour of organized disturbances introduced into the flow field, However, no conclusions could be reached, one way or other, regarding a definite connection between hydrodynamic instability and wall turbulence. More recently, and over the past few years, we have improved upon the theoretical analysis of Reynolds and Hussain and have also done some experiments. We are now able to conclude much more positively that organized disturbances and hydrodynamic instability modes may have a very definite connection with wall turbulence. Here we present brief reviews of the past works of others and mainly summarize our work and discuss some of our recent findings. [References: 22]