Experimental study of resonant interactions of instability waves in an airfoil boundary layer

Abstract

The present paper is devoted to the detailed experimental study of weakly nonlinear resonant interactions of Tollmien-Schlichting waves in a specially designed 2D non self-similar boundary layer on an airfoil. The influence of the fundamental frequency on the efficiency of the tuned subharmonic resonance is investigated as well as the influence of frequency and spanwise wavenumber detunings. The results are compared with Direct Numerical Simulations based on a vorticity-velocity formulation of the complete Navier-Stokes equations. Good overall agreement is achieved. © 2006 Springer.