3d Boundary Layer

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22 Nov 2002 11:40 AR AR159-FM35-17.tex AR159-FM35-17.sgm LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: GLM
10.1146/annurev.fluid.35.101101.161045
Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 2003. 35:413–40

doi: 10.1146/annurev.fluid.35.101101.161045
Copyright °
c 2003 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
STABILITY AND TRANSITION OF

THREE-DIMENSIONAL BOUNDARY LAYERS
William S. Saric1, Helen L. Reed1, and Edward B. White2
1
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
85287-6106; email: saric@asu.edu, helen.reed@asu.edu
2
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland,
Ohio 44106-7222; email: ebw@po.cwru.edu
Key Words roughness, nonlinear, saturation, secondary instabilities, rotating disk,

swept wing
■ Abstract The recent progress in three-dimensional boundary-layer stability and
transition is reviewed. The material focuses on the crossflow instability that leads to
transition on swept wings and rotating disks. Following a brief overview of instability
mechanisms and the crossflow problem, a summary of the important findings of the
1990s is given.
1. INTRODUCTION
In low-disturbance environments such as flight, boundary-layer transition to tur-

bulence generally occurs through the uninterrupted growth of linear instabilities.
The initial conditions for these instabilities are introduced through the receptiv-
ity process, which depends on a variety of factors (Saric et al. 2002). There is
no shortage of publications in the field of boundary-layer stability and transi-
tion. Comprehensive reviews for both two- and three-dimensional (3-D) flows are
given by Arnal (1994), Mack (1984), and Reshotko (1994). Reed et al. (1996)
give an up-to-date discussion of the effectiveness and limitations of linear the-
ory in describing boundary-layer instabilities. The reader is referred to these re-
ports for overviews of much of the early work in stability and transition. Crouch
and coworkers (Crouch 1997, Crouch & Ng 2000, Crouch et al. 2001) and
Herbert (1997b) have presented analyses of transition with specific applications
to flight.
Reed & Saric (1989) review the early theoretical and experimental work in 3-D
boundary layers. Swept wings, rotating disks, axisymmetric bodies (rotating cones
and spheres), corner flows, attachment-line instabilities, as well as the stability of
flows for other 3-D geometries are covered. This historical account and literature
survey of the crossflow instability are used for references prior to 1989. During the
0066-4189/03/0115-0413$14.00 413
414 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE
past 12 years, most of the progress has occurred in rotating-disk and swept-wing
flows, and this review concentrates on these areas.
The study of 3-D boundary layers is motivated by the need to understand the
fundamental instability mechanisms that cause transition in swept-wing flows.
Research has identified four types of instabilities for these flows: attachment line,
streamwise, centrifugal, and crossflow. The attachment-line boundary layer can un-
dergo an instability or be subject to contamination by wing-root turbulence; these
phenomena are associated with, in general, swept wings with a large leading-edge
radius (Hall et al. 1984, Reed & Saric 1989). The streamwise instability gives
the familiar Tollmien-Schlichting (T-S) wave in two-dimensional flows (Reshotko
1976, Mack 1984, Reed et al. 1996). Centrifugal instabilities appear over con-
cave regions on the surface and result in the development of Görtler vortices
(Saric 1994). The crossflow instability occurs in regions of pressure gradient on
swept surfaces or on rotating disks. In the inviscid region outside the boundary
layer, the combined influences of sweep and pressure gradient produce curved
streamlines at the boundary-layer edge. Inside the boundary layer, the stream-
wise velocity is reduced, but the pressure gradient is unchanged. Thus, the bal-
ance between centripetal acceleration and pressure gradient does not exist. This
imbalance results in a secondary flow in the boundary layer, called crossflow,
that is perpendicular to the direction of the inviscid streamline. The 3-D pro-
file and resolved streamwise and crossflow boundary-layer profiles are shown in
Figure 1.
Because the crossflow velocity must vanish at the wall and at the edge of the
boundary layer, an inflection point exists and provides a source of an inviscid
instability. The instability appears as co-rotating vortices whose axes are aligned
to within a few degrees of the local inviscid streamlines.
Unlike T-S instabilities, the crossflow problem exhibits amplified disturbances
that are stationary as well as traveling. Even though both types of waves are
present in typical swept-wing or rotating-disk flows, transition is usually caused
by either one, but not both, of these waves. Although linear theory predicts that
the traveling disturbances have higher growth rates, transition in many exper-
iments is induced by stationary waves. Whether stationary or traveling waves
dominate is related to the receptivity process. Stationary waves are more im-
portant in low-turbulence environments characteristic of flight, whereas traveling
waves dominate in high-turbulence environments (Bippes 1997, Deyhle & Bippes
1996).
Stationary crossflow waves (v0 and w0 disturbances) are typically very weak;
hence, analytical models have been based on linear theory. However, experiments
often show evidence of strong nonlinear effects (Dagenhart et al. 1989, 1990;
Bippes & Nitschke-Kowsky 1990; Bippes et al. 1991; Deyhle et al. 1993; Reibert
et al. 1996). Because the wave fronts are fixed with respect to the model and are
nearly aligned with the potential-flow direction (i.e., the wavenumber vector is
nearly perpendicular to the local inviscid streamline), the weak (v0 , w0 ) motion of
the wave convects O(1) streamwise momentum producing a strong u 0 distortion
3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 415
Figure 1 Swept-wing boundary-layer profiles.
in the streamwise boundary-layer profile. This integrated effect and the resulting
local distortion of the mean boundary layer lead to the modification of the basic
state and the early development of nonlinear effects.
An interesting feature of the stationary crossflow waves is the creation of sec-
ondary instabilities. The u 0 distortions created by the stationary wave are time
independent, resulting in a spanwise modulation of the mean streamwise velocity
profile. As the distortions grow, the boundary layer develops an alternating pattern
of accelerated, decelerated, and doubly inflected profiles. The inflected profiles
are inviscidly unstable and, as such, are subject to a high-frequency secondary
instability (Kohama et al. 1991, Malik et al. 1994, Wassermann & Kloker 2002).
This secondary instability is highly amplified and leads to rapid local breakdown.
Because transition develops locally, the transition front is nonuniform in span and
characterized by a “saw-tooth” pattern of turbulent wedges.
Arnal (1997), Bippes (1999), and Kachanov (1996) review the European contri-
butions to stability and transition in 3-D boundary layers and, as such, are compan-
ion papers to this work. Recently, improvements in both experimental techniques
and computational methods have opened the door to a new understanding of transi-
tion in 3-D boundary layers. This review focuses on the latest developments, with
emphasis on the experimental work and relevant comparisons with computational
fluid dynamics (CFD).
2. ROTATING DISK
The boundary layer on the surface of a rotating disk has been used as a model
problem for swept-wing flow because the velocity profiles on the disk provide a
basic state and stability behavior very similar to that of the swept-wing boundary
layer shown in Figure 1. The advantage of the rotating disk is the existence of a
well-known similarity solution for the basic flow that features a boundary layer
of constant thickness. Reed & Saric (1989) reviewed in detail the progress on the
rotating-disk problem through the 1980s. At the time of that review, a number of
analyses and experiments were beginning to provide a good picture of the linear
stability of stationary waves, especially those connected to the upper inviscid
branch of the neutral stability curve, but much remained to be determined about
the lower viscous branch, traveling waves, and nonlinear behavior.
Linear stability of traveling waves was addressed by Balakumar & Malik (1991),
who used a parallel-flow approximation and considered the neutral curves at
nonzero frequencies. They found that, as the frequency increases, the Reynolds
number of the lower minimum decreases while that of the upper minimum in-
creases. The minimum critical Reynolds number over all frequencies is found to
be a lower-branch minimum. For the frequencies examined, the Reynolds num-
ber and wave angle associated with the upper-branch minimum do not change
significantly, but there are large changes at the lower-branch minimum.
For the linear problem, Faller (1991) considered both the upper and lower
branches of the rotating-disk neutral curve and found minimum critical Reynolds-
number behavior equivalent to that found by Malik (1986) for the stationary upper-
branch mode and similar to the results obtained by Balakumar & Malik (1991) for
the traveling lower-branch mode. Faller (1991) explained that the lower-branch
modes are typically not observed in experiments both because they have a lower
growth rate than those on the upper branch and because, among the lower-branch
modes, stationary modes are much less amplified than traveling modes. This is
in contrast to the upper branch where the amplification of stationary waves is
nearly equal to the most amplified traveling waves. Because most experiments are
better able to detect stationary waves than traveling waves, it is natural that slowly
growing traveling disturbances like the lower-branch modes can easily escape
detection.
Jarre et al. (1996a) measured traveling and stationary waves on a rotating disk
to confirm linear-stability theory (LST) predictions, particularly those concerning
traveling waves. The fluctuation intensity measured close to the upper-branch
stationary-wave neutral point is 2%, so the experiments have a relatively high
disturbance level. Jarre et al. (1996a) found a minimum critical Reynolds number
for stationary waves reasonably close to the theoretical predictions. The agreement
between the measurements and theory for the corresponding wavenumber and the
disturbance-mode eigenfunctions (Malik 1986) is not as good. This appears to be
due to the basic-state circumferential velocity not going to zero above the disk as
the similarity solution requires.
A somewhat different approach to the rotating-disk problem is taken in a se-
ries of papers by Itoh (1994, 1996, 1997, 1998), Buck & Takagi (1997), Takagi
et al. (1998, 2000), and Buck et al. (2000). Itoh (1994) formulated the linear-
stability problem to explicitly include the curvature of the inviscid streamline at
the boundary-layer edge. He found that strongly curved inviscid streamlines pro-
duce a centrifugal-type instability similar to the Görtler instability on concave
walls (Saric 1994). Because streamlines are highly curved near the symmetry
axis in rotating disk flow, Itoh (1996, 1998) investigated whether the streamline-
curvature instability can occur in these boundary layers. He found that the linear-
stability neutral curve has two lobes: one for the crossflow instability and the
other for the streamline-curvature instability. The streamline-curvature instabil-
ity is unstable at much lower Reynolds numbers than crossflow, and the range
of unstable wave numbers decreases as the Reynolds number grows. For cross-
flow, the unstable wave-number range increases with increasing Reynolds number
past the minimum critical value. Itoh (1996, 1998) concluded that the streamline-
curvature instability is the source of the lower branch of the neutral curve discussed
above.
Although the streamline-curvature instability is destabilized at a much lower
Reynolds number than the crossflow instability, in most experiments the crossflow
instability is observed. This discrepancy is likely a result of either smaller growth
rates or smaller receptivity of the streamline-curvature instability versus the cross-
flow instability. To address the growth-rate question, Itoh (1997) calculated that,
in a region unstable to both instabilities, the growth of streamline-curvature modes
is larger than that of crossflow modes. In a subsequent experiment, Takagi et al.
(1998) confirmed, at least qualitatively, the predictions by Itoh (1997). Experi-
mental verification is also provided by Buck & Takagi (1997) and Takagi et al.
(2000), who used point-source disturbance generators. Buck et al. (2000) also
demonstrated that for point-source forcing early growth of streamline-curvature
disturbances can suppress the appearance of crossflow disturbances that are ob-
served under zero-forcing conditions. However, Buck et al. (2000) suggested that
the suppression may not prevent or delay transition because the large-amplitude
streamline-curvature disturbances may lead to turbulence.
2.1. Nonlinearities, Wave Interactions, and

Secondary Instabilities
When the review by Reed & Saric (1989) was published there was only a limited
body of work that considered the nonlinear behavior of finite-amplitude distur-
bances in rotating-disk boundary layers. Subsequently, there have been several
analytical and experimental investigations of the nonlinear regime. One of the
analytical works was by Vonderwell & Riahi (1993), who examined the weakly
nonlinear behavior of waves near the minimum critical Reynolds number of the
upper-branch neutral point. They developed a Landau-type equation for the wave
amplitude and found that the Landau constant is negative such that there is a subcrit-
ical instability at R < Rc and that disturbance amplitudes go to infinity (in the weakly
nonlinear model) in finite time for R > Rc. This conflicts with the earlier finding by
Itoh (1985) stating that the instability is supercritical. Jarre et al. (1996b) conducted
a follow-up experiment to their previous work (Jarre et al. 1996a) that determined
the Landau constant from data. The experiment features a single, large-amplitude
roughness element that generates finite-amplitude stationary waves. Even though
the basic state differs from that of the similarity solution as mentioned above, the
results do seem to support at least a qualitative analysis of the Landau equation
coefficients. In contrast to the results presented by Vonderwell & Riahi (1993) that
indicated a negative Landau constant, Jarre et al. (1996b) found that the Landau
constant is positive, meaning that the instability is supercritical. This result seems
reasonable in light of the related swept-wing experiments discussed below that
show that finite-amplitude crossflow waves undergo amplitude saturation.
Corke & Knasiak (1998) considered nonlinear wave interactions on a rotating
disk. They used a polished disk with various periodic roughness configurations
located near the minimum critical Reynolds number, Rc, for upper-branch modes.
Various tests showed that stationary modes obeyed linear theory in terms of circum-
ferential wave number, growth rate, and mode shape up to a radius of R/Rc ≈ 1.5.
Traveling waves are also well predicted by linear theory. In the nonlinear regime,
Corke & Knasiak (1998) found significant growth of very-low-wave-number sta-
tionary waves that are obviously not growing according to linear theory. Using the
bicoherence of traveling and stationary wave phases, they confirmed a triad reso-
nance. In all of the roughness configurations tested (including no artificial rough-
ness), low circumferential wave numbers were produced by triad resonance and
grew to at least as large an amplitude as the most amplified stationary disturbances.
A mechanism for the final stage of the transition process, breakdown of the
laminar boundary layer by means of a secondary instability, was considered by
Balachandar et al. (1992) using a Floquet approach that considered a steady basic
state in the rotating reference frame consisting of the mean flow plus the most
amplified stationary disturbance predicted by linear theory at amplitudes ranging
from 6% to 12%. Below 9% amplitude, no secondary modes are destabilized, but
above this threshold, a broad band of secondary modes are destabilized with growth
rates as high as four times that of the stationary waves of the primary instability.
2.2. Absolute Instabilities

Perhaps the most important recent development in the study of the rotating-disk
problem is the theory by Lingwood (1995) that rotating-disk boundary layers
support an absolute instability at R = 510. The implication of this finding is that
the steady, laminar basic state cannot exist beyond this Reynolds number regardless
of the care taken in preparing and conducting the experiment. This finding is in
good agreement with various rotating-disk experiments, most of which do not
maintain laminar flow much beyond R = 500.
Lingwood (1995) followed Briggs’ method (see Huerre & Monkewitz 1990),
which prescribes the means to evaluate the Fourier-Laplace integral that arises
from considering an initial-boundary-value problem for impulsive forcing in a
developing flow. If the group velocity of a disturbance wave packet goes to zero
while the temporal growth rate is positive, then the flow is absolutely unstable.
Lingwood (1995) applied Briggs’ method by using a parallel-flow approximation
and observed a pinch between two neutral branches of the dispersion relationship
that yields a positive temporal growth rate at a Reynolds number R ≥ 510.625.
As R is increased, the absolutely unstable wave-number range expands and at
large R tends toward the limits found for the inviscid case. Lingwood (1995)
concluded that the absolute instability arises from an inviscid mechanism and that
the good correlation between the Reynolds-number limit for absolute instability
and the experimental transition Reynolds numbers makes a case for transition
being triggered by the absolute instability.
Lingwood (1996) then performed an experiment on a rotating disk in which
stationary-wave development leading to transition was observed with both an un-
excited and an excited flow in which a once-per-revolution transient disturbance
was introduced near the center of the disk. The unexcited flow exhibited stationary
waves that grew in a manner consistent with LST and led to transitional behavior
by R = 514 with fully turbulent behavior observed by approximately R = 600.
Perhaps the most important information from the tests without excitation is that
the spectra of the time series do not show any evidence of secondary instabilities
prior to breakdown. Balachandar et al. (1992) claimed that an amplitude of at least
9% would be required to see such behavior and that Lingwood’s (1996) stationary
waves only reach 3% prior to transition, so this result is not unexpected. The other
interesting feature of the spectra is that there is an abrupt jump of approximately a
factor of 10 in the fluctuation amplitudes at all frequencies when R is between 497
and 514 that is not preceded by any significant signs of imminent breakdown to tur-
bulence. In fact, downstream of the jump, the spectra do not appear turbulent; there
is a distinct spectral peak associated with the stationary waves and a lower am-
plitude peak associated with harmonics of the stationary waves. The jump occurs
exactly in the region of the absolute instability identified by Lingwood (1995).
A more compelling demonstration of the existence of the absolute instability
comes from Lingwood’s (1996) experiments that include transient forcing. The
leading edge of the wave packet convects in the radial direction at an essentially
constant rate, whereas the propagation rate of the trailing edge decreases dra-
matically as the packet approaches the critical Reynolds number for the absolute
instability, as predicted by Lingwood’s earlier analysis. Taken together, the ex-
perimental evidence convincingly shows that for cases with low-amplitude initial
disturbances (i.e., low enough to avoid secondary instabilities) disturbances pass
from a convective-instability regime for R < 510 to an absolutely unstable regime
for R > 510. The discovery that an absolute instability exists on rotating disks is
important because this places a firm upper bound on the Reynolds numbers for
which laminar flow is possible.
The improved picture of rotating-disk instabilities includes a number of routes
to turbulence. First, high-amplitude traveling disturbances (if they exist) may be
amplified at very low Reynolds numbers. At higher Reynolds numbers, stationary
waves dominate. These can lead to turbulence through two distinct mechanisms.
If the disturbance levels are high, then high-frequency secondary instabilities lead
to rapid transition. If disturbance levels are low and secondary instabilities do
not appear, the flow becomes absolutely unstable for Reynolds numbers above
510, and transition occurs. Despite a better understanding of this basic scenario,
much remains to be learned, especially in regard to nonlinear behavior. One
important problem that remains is to conclusively identify whether the various
branches of the instability are subcritical or supercritical. Another unresolved
question is what effect, if any, finite-amplitude disturbances have on the absolute
instability.
3. SWEPT WING
3.1. Swept Flat Plate

A prototype of the swept wing is a swept flat plate with a pressure body (Saric &
Yeates 1985) that could be used to verify the basic aspects of LST. The advantage
of the flat plate is that the first neutral point can be placed away from the leading
edge and thus avoiding nonparallel and curvature effects. In a series of experiments
on swept flat plates (Nitschke-Kowsky & Bippes 1988, Müller 1990, Deyhle et al.
1993, Kachanov & Tararykin 1990, Kachanov 1996), the observed wavelength
and growth rate of the crossflow wave is in general agreement with linear theory
(Orr-Sommerfeld solutions).
Deyhle et al. (1993) and Kachanov (1996) developed techniques to create con-
trolled traveling waves within the boundary layer and observed the growth of
them. Linear theory was also verified in this case. Bippes (1997) put into per-
spective the importance of traveling modes and their dependence on freestream
conditions. In general, under conditions of high freestream turbulence, traveling
modes dominate and linear theory predicts the behavior of the crossflow waves. In
low-turbulence flows, stationary waves dominate, the mean flow is distorted, and
nonlinear behavior occurs rapidly, thus obviating the linear analysis beyond initial
mode selection.
3.2. Receptivity
When the paper by Reed & Saric (1989) was published, very little was known
regarding receptivity of 3-D boundary layers. It was acknowledged that recep-
tivity must play a major role in determining the details of crossflow transition
because of the wide range of behaviors observed using different models in various
experimental facilities. In detailing a list of unanswered questions regarding these
variations observed in different facilities, Reed & Saric (1989) concluded, “All of
this serves notice that stability and transition phenomena are extremely dependent
on initial conditions.” Since then, a significant research effort that includes exper-
imental, theoretical, and computational work has made great progress toward an
understanding of the applicable receptivity processes [the reader is referred to the
review by Bippes (1999) for additional details]. Owing to space constraints, we
focus primarily on the recent efforts in this area.
ROLE OF FREESTREAM FLUCTUATIONS The effect of freestream turbulence on

crossflow transition was investigated by Deyhle & Bippes (1996), who performed
transition measurements on a crossflow-dominated swept-plate model in a number
of different wind-tunnel facilities with varying freestream-turbulence levels. They
found that for the particular model used in those experiments turbulence intensities
above Tu = 0.0015 produced transition behavior dominated by traveling waves,
but that for lower turbulence levels stationary waves dominated. It is surprising to
note that for increased turbulence levels where traveling waves dominate but the
turbulence intensity is not too high, 0.0015 < Tu < 0.0020, transition was actu-
ally delayed relative to low-turbulence cases at the same Reynolds number. The
explanation for this is that the traveling waves excited by the increased freestream
turbulence were sufficiently strong to prevent stationary waves from causing tran-
sition but were not strong enough to cause transition as quickly as the stationary
waves they replaced. This behavior indicates that transition results from many
wind tunnels may have no bearing on flight results because quite low levels of
turbulence are sufficient to generate traveling-wave-dominated behavior, counter
to the stationary-wave-dominated behavior observed in flight.
In another experiment, Radeztsky et al. (1999) found that transition behavior
on a swept wing is insensitive to sound, even at amplitudes greater than 100 dB.
The conclusion is that the variations observed by Deyhle & Bippes (1996) at
varying levels of Tu are due primarily to variations in the vortical components of
the freestream fluctuations and not to the acoustic component.
ROLE OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS The receptivity mechanism for the stationary vor-
tices that are important for transition in environments with very-low-amplitude
turbulent fluctuations (i.e., characteristic of the flight environment) is surface
roughness. This was conclusively established by Müller & Bippes (1989), who
translated a swept-flat-plate model relative to a wind-tunnel test section and found
that the recurring stationary transition pattern was fixed to the model. The in-
stability features they observed had to be related to model roughness rather than
to fixed features of the freestream flow generated by nonuniformities of the screens

or other effects.
Detailed roughness studies of isolated 3-D roughness features have been com-
pleted by Juillen & Arnal (1990), who found that for isolated roughness elements
the correlation by von Doenhoff & Braslow (1961) describing the limit for bypass
transition is correct. Radeztsky et al. (1999) showed that the characteristics of
isolated 3-D roughness elements whose Rek values fall below the bypass-inducing
level play a very important role in transition behavior. Radeztsky et al. (1999)
found that roughness is most effective at generating crossflow disturbances at or
just upstream of the first neutral point, that the transition location is quite sensitive
to roughness height even for roughness Reynolds numbers as low as Rek = 0.1,
and that the roughness diameter must be greater than 10% of the most amplified
stationary wavelength to be effective.
In addition to isolated 3-D roughness, natural surface roughness can also play a
significant role in transition location. Radeztsky et al. (1999) found that a decrease
in surface-roughness amplitude from 9.0 µm rms to 0.25 µm rms increases the
transition Reynolds number by 70%. In contrast to this, experiments by Reibert
et al. (1996) showed that an artificial distributed roughness array with an amplitude
of 6 µm or greater applied near the leading edge produces transition behavior
almost completely insensitive to roughness amplitude in the range of 6–50 µm. In
the experiment by Reibert et al. (1996), the periodic roughness arrays concentrate
the disturbances in a very narrow band of wavelengths, and these well-defined
modes generally lead to nonlinear amplitude saturation of the most amplified
wave. Amplitude saturation renders the initial amplitude nearly unimportant so
long as it is above a threshold for which saturation occurs prior to transition.
In other words, Radeztsky et al. (1999) saw a strong roughness-amplitude effect
for roughness conditions that did not lead to saturation, whereas Reibert et al.
(1996) did not see a strong roughness-amplitude effect for roughness at or above
saturation-producing amplitudes.
RECEPTIVITY COMPUTATIONS A number of theoretical and computational ap-

proaches to swept-wing crossflow receptivity have been applied. Some of the
more recent include an adjoint equation approach by Fedorov (1989), a parabo-
lized stability equation (PSE; linear PSE, LPSE; nonlinear PSE, NPSE) approach
by Herbert & Lin (1993), and a direct numerical simulation (DNS) approach by
Spalart (1993). Other efforts are by Crouch (1993, 1994, 1995) and Choudhari
(1994), both consider the receptivity of Falkner-Skan-Cooke boundary layers as
perturbations of a parallel boundary layer. The framework of their approaches al-
lows both surface roughness and freestream acoustic disturbances to be considered
as disturbance sources. Choudhari (1994) extended his work to include acoustic-
wave-angle effects and a variety of different roughness configurations including
isolated roughness, roughness arrays and lattices, as well as distributed random
roughness. Crouch (1994) emphasized a framework equally applicable to T-S and
crossflow disturbances. Because traveling-wave receptivity scales with two small
parameters (the freestream velocity-fluctuation amplitude and surface-roughness

amplitude), whereas the stationary-wave receptivity scales with only one (the sur-
face roughness), both authors note that stationary waves should be expected to
dominate in low-disturbance environments and that traveling waves should only
appear for large freestream fluctuation levels. The experiments by Radeztsky et al.
(1999) confirm that acoustic forcing is not an effective receptivity source when the
surface roughness is low.
The method described by Crouch (1994) is used by Ng & Crouch (1999) to
model the artificial roughness arrays used in the Arizona State University (ASU)
swept-wing experiments by Reibert et al. (1996). Ng & Crouch (1999) give results
that are in good agreement with the experiments when the receptivity of 12-mm
waves (most unstable mode) to low-amplitude (roughness height 6 or 18 µm),
12-mm-spaced roughness arrays is considered. However, the linear theory over-
predicts the receptivity of the 48-µm roughness, suggesting the nonlinear effects
reduce receptivity effectiveness. Results are not as good for the receptivity of
9-, 12-, and 18-mm waves to 36-mm-spaced roughness, but this problem may
be complicated by the nonlinear growth and production of harmonics associated
with the stationary crossflow waves. Bertolotti (2000) presented another Fourier-
transform approach that includes the effects of basic flow nonparallelism. Bertolotti
applied the method to both swept Hiemenz flow and the Deutschen Centrum für
Luft- und Raumfhahrt (DLR) swept-flat-plate experiment by Bippes and cowork-
ers. Comparisons between the receptivity predictions and the DLR swept-plate
results are quite good.
Another recent approach by Collis & Lele (1999) consists of solving the steady
Navier-Stokes equations in the leading-edge region of a swept parabolic body
and of using that solution as a basic state for a linearized steady-disturbance sys-
tem that includes surface roughness. Comparing the results of this approach to
those obtained by Choudhari (1994) and Crouch (1994) shows that receptivity to
surface roughness is enhanced by convex surface curvature and suppressed by non-
parallelism. Neglecting nonparallelism causes the local approach to overpredict
receptivity by as much as 77% for the most amplified stationary crossflow wave.
The error introduced by neglecting nonparallelism is most severe for wavelengths
in the range most amplified by the crossflow instability and for roughness close
to the first neutral point. Janke (2001) confirmed overprediction of receptivity by
local approaches. The implication is that amplitude-based transition-prediction
methods need to employ a receptivity model that includes nonparallelism because
the crossflow modes that dominate transition are most strongly affected by this in-
fluence. This result stands somewhat in contradiction to the result by Ng & Crouch
(1999) that includes neither surface curvature nor nonparallelism yet shows good
agreement with experimental results.
ROLE OF TURBULENCE/ROUGHNESS INTERACTIONS Although receptivity models

have considered the interaction of surface roughness with acoustic fluctuations,
none consider the receptivity of freestream turbulence interacting with surface
roughness. The experiments by Radeztsky et al. (1999) and Deyhle & Bippes
(1996) would suggest however that the turbulent fluctuations play a much more
significant role in the transition process than acoustic fluctuations. Deyhle &
Bippes (1996) give a turbulence intensity criterion that selects traveling or station-
ary modes, but drawing an analogy to the acoustic/roughness interaction results,
one should suspect that it is the interaction of freestream turbulence with surface
roughness that is the important consideration. Turbulence level alone may not be
sufficient to predict whether traveling or stationary waves will be most important.
With this in mind, the experiment by White et al. (2001) examined the in-
teractions of surface roughness and freestream turbulence and confirmed that the
selection of traveling-wave or stationary-wave behavior is not as straightforward as
the Tu = 0.0015 criterion. In that experiment, a swept-wing model outfitted with
a variable-amplitude roughness insert at x/c = 0.025 (near the first crossflow neu-
tral point) was used to change the roughness configuration during an experiment
from nominally smooth (<0.5 µm rms) to an 8-mm-spaced, 50-µm-high rough-
ness pattern with 2-mm diameter roughness elements. A turbulence-generating
grid provided a turbulence intensity of Tu = 0.003. With a nominally smooth
leading edge, a sharp saw-tooth transition pattern was observed in a naphthalene
flow-visualization experiment, indicating stationary-wave-dominated transition,
but when the roughness array was activated, the saw-tooth transition front was
replaced by a diffuse spanwise-invariant transition front indicative of traveling-
wave-dominated transition. The implication is that traveling waves do result from
an interaction of freestream velocity fluctuations with surface roughness and not
from turbulence intensity alone. Therefore, even though stationary waves are gener-
ated by surface roughness, increasing the roughness amplitude does not necessarily
make stationary waves more likely to be observed than traveling waves. Instead,
both surface roughness and turbulence intensity must be considered together in a
more sophisticated manner.
3.3. Nonlinear Behavior

NONLINEAR SATURATION In all the experiments by Bippes and coworkers, the
growth of the stationary and traveling crossflow waves showed initial qualitative
agreement with linear theory. However, the disturbance amplitude saturated owing
to nonlinear effects. Also, the amplitude of the traveling waves showed a span-
wise modulation indicating nonlinear interactions with the stationary modes. The
streamwise-mode shapes had saturation amplitudes of approximately 20%.
Reibert et al. (1996) investigated the nonlinear saturation of stationary waves
using micron-sized artificial roughness elements to control the initial conditions.
Full-span arrays of roughness elements were used to preserve the uniform spanwise
periodicity of the disturbance as shown in the velocity contour plot of Figure 2,
where the crossflow moves from left to right.
The development of crossflow occurs in two stages. The first stage is linear
and is characterized by small vertical v0 and spanwise w0 disturbance velocities
convecting low-momentum fluid away from the wall and high-momentum fluid
toward the wall. This exchange of momentum occurs in a region very close to the
wall where there are large vertical gradients in the basic-state streamwise velocity.
Because of this large gradient, the small displacements caused by the v0 and w0
disturbance components quickly lead to large disturbances u 0 superposed on the
basic state further downstream. This u 0 component soon becomes too large, and
nonlinear interactions must be included in any calculations. This is the second
stage, evidenced by rollover seen in the streamwise-velocity contours. By forc-
ing the most unstable mode (according to linear theory), nonlinear saturation of
the disturbance amplitude is observed well before transition. Although the initial
growth rate increases with increasing roughness height, the saturation amplitude
remains largely unaffected by changes in the roughness height. The presence of
a large laminar extent of nonlinear saturation gives rise to a certain difficulty in
using linear methods (such as e N or LPSE) to predict transition. The futility of
such approaches is expressed by Arnal (1994) and Reed et al. (1996), who show
that linear methods do not work in correlating transition for crossflow-dominated
boundary layers.
MODAL DECOMPOSITION Radeztsky et al. (1994) described a measurement tech-

nique that allows the experimentally obtained stationary crossflow structure to be
decomposed into its spatial modes. Using a high-resolution traversing mechanism,
hotwires are carefully moved through the boundary layer along a predetermined
path. Data are acquired at numerous spanwise locations, from which modal in-
formation is extracted using a spatial power spectrum. Reibert et al. (1996) used
a slightly modified technique to more objectively determine the modal content.
Under certain conditions, the amplitude of the fundamental disturbance mode and
eight harmonics are successfully extracted from the experimental data.
EXCITATION OF LESS UNSTABLE MODES Using the modal decomposition tech-

nique described above, Reibert et al. (1996) investigated the effect of roughness-
induced forcing at a wavelength three times that of the most unstable stationary
mode (according to linear theory). A cascading of energy from the fundamental to
higher modes (smaller wavelengths) was observed, leading to nonlinear interac-
tions among the fundamental mode and its harmonics. Transition was observed to
occur slightly earlier compared to forcing at the most unstable wavelength, and the
saw-tooth transition front was much more “regular” in span. These data indicate
that nonlinear interactions among multiple modes are important in determining
the details of transition.
EXCITATION OF SUBCRITICAL MODES Continuing the experiments by Reibert et al.

(1996), Saric et al. (1998) described a set of experiments in which the stationary
crossflow disturbance is forced with subcritical roughness spacing, i.e., the spac-
ing between roughness elements is less than the wavelength of the most unstable
mode. Under these conditions, the rapid growth of the forced mode completely
suppresses the linearly most unstable mode, thereby delaying transition beyond its
“natural” location (i.e., where transition occurs in the absence of artificial rough-
ness). These data demonstrate that surface roughness can be used to control the
stationary crossflow disturbance wave-number spectrum in order to delay transi-
tion on swept wings.
STRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION USING POD Chapman et al. (1998) applied linear

stochastic estimation and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) to identify the
spatio-temporal evolution of structures within a swept-wing boundary layer. De-
tailed measurements are acquired using multielement hotfilm, hotwire, and cross-
wire anemometry. These data allow the POD to objectively determine (based on
energy) the modes characteristic of the measured flow. Data are acquired through
the transition region, from which an objective transition-detection method is
developed using the streamwise spatial POD solutions.
CFD COMPARISONS (DNS) DNS have historically been constrained by computer

resources and algorithmic limitations; however, some successes have been achieved
in relation to the stationary crossflow problem. Reed & Lin (1987) and Lin & Reed
(1993) performed DNS for stationary waves on an infinite-span swept wing simi-
lar to the ASU experiments. Meyer & Kleiser (1990) investigated the disturbance
interactions between stationary and traveling crossflow modes on a swept flat plate
using Falkner-Scan-Cooke similarity profiles for the basic state. The results are
compared to the experiments by Müller & Bippes (1989). With an appropriate
initial disturbance field, the nonlinear development of stationary and traveling
crossflow modes is simulated reasonably well up to transition. Wintergerste &
Kleiser (1995) continued this work by using DNS to investigate the breakdown of
crossflow vortices in the highly nonlinear final stages of transition.
CFD COMPARISONS (PSE) Combining the ability to include nonparallel and non-
linear effects with computationally efficient parabolic marching algorithms, the
PSE developed by Herbert (1997a) have recently been used to successfully model
the crossflow instability. For swept-wing flows, NPSE calculations exhibit the dis-
turbance amplitude saturation characteristic of the DLR and ASU experiments.
Wang et al. (1994) investigated both stationary and traveling crossflow waves for
the swept airfoil used in the ASU experiments and predicted nonlinear amplitude
saturation for both types of disturbances. It is suggested that the interaction between
the stationary and traveling waves is an important aspect of the transition process.
Haynes & Reed (2000) recently validated the NPSE approach for 3-D flows
subjected to crossflow disturbances. Here a detailed comparison of NPSE results
with the experimental measurements by Reibert et al. (1996) show remarkably
good agreement. Haynes & Reed (2000) independently computed the inviscid
flow for the model, from which the edge boundary conditions were generated for
the boundary-layer code. The initial conditions for the NPSE calculation (with
curvature) were obtained by solving the local LST equations at 5% chord location
for the fundamental stationary mode and adjusting its RMS amplitude such that
the total disturbance amplitude matched that of the experiment at 10% chord. The
Figure 3 Disturbance amplitude for Orr-Sommerfeld, LPSE, NPSE (Haynes & Reed
2000), and experiments (Reibert et al. 1996).
NPSE was then matched from 5% chord to 45% chord. Transition occurred on
the experimental model at 47% chord. The primary and higher modes all grow
rapidly at first and saturate at approximately 30% chord. This is due to a strong
nonlinear interaction among all the modes over a large chordwise distance. An
interesting discovery by Haynes & Reed (2000) is that the flow is hypersensitive to
seemingly negligible streamline and body curvature and that inclusion of curvature
terms is required to adequately match the experimental data. Figure 3 shows the
comparison of the experimental N -factor (log of the amplitude ratio) with LPSE,
NPSE, and LST as the crossflow vortex grows and then saturates downstream.
All the computations include curvature. It is clear that the linear theories fail to
accurately describe saturation for this situation.
Figure 4 shows a comparison of the experimental and computational total
streamwise velocity contours at 45% chord; the agreement between the NPSE
and the experiments is excellent. The computations in Figures 3 and 4 use only an
initial amplitude. The basic state is computed independently from the experimental
data.
There has been much debate about the effects of curvature. For the ASU config-
uration, the inclusion of curvature has a very small effect on the metric coefficients.
The maximum values of metric coefficients occur at 5% chord where they are of
the order of 1 × 10−2 and 10−3, respectively. They both drop off sharply with
increasing chordwise distance. These values may compel the researcher to ne-
glect curvature, but the work by Haynes & Reed (2000) demonstrates conclusively
that small changes in the metric coefficients can have a significant effect on the
development of crossflow vortices.
Radeztsky et al. (1994) studied the effects of angle-of-attack. Here, in a case of
weak favorable pressure gradient, the experiments showed that the crossflow distur-
bance is decaying in disagreement with various linear theories (LST, LPSE/without
curvature, and LST/with curvature) that predicted a growing disturbance.
Radeztsky et al. (1994) concluded that the disagreement was due to nonlinear-
ity. For this case, Haynes & Reed (2000) found that the LPSE/with curvature and
NPSE/with curvature both agreed with the experiment, indicating that, in fact, the
crossflow disturbance decays and that there is a strong sensitivity to changes in
curvature, nonparallel effects, and pressure gradient (angle-of-attack). The distur-
bance was linear for this case.
3.4. Control with Distributed Roughness

Two important observations concerning the distributed roughness results by
Reibert et al. (1996) are (a) unstable waves occur only at integer multiples of
the primary disturbance wave number and (b) no subharmonic disturbances are
destabilized. Spacing the roughness elements with wave number k = 2π/λ apart
excites harmonic disturbances with spanwise wave numbers of 2k, 3k, . . . , nk (cor-
responding to λ/2, λ/3, . . . , λ/n) but does not produce any unstable waves with
“intermediate” wavelengths or with wavelengths greater than λ.
Following this lead, Saric et al. (1998) investigated the effects of distributed
roughness whose primary disturbance wave number does not contain a harmonic
at λs = 12 mm (the most unstable wavelength according to linear theory). By
changing the fundamental disturbance wavelength (i.e., the roughness spacing)
to 18 mm, the velocity contours clearly showed the presence of the 18-, 9-, and
6-mm wavelengths. However, the linearly most unstable disturbance (λs = 12 mm)
has been completely suppressed. Moreover (and consistent with all previous
results), no subharmonic disturbances are observed, which shows that an appropri-
ately designed roughness configuration can, in fact, inhibit the growth of the (natu-
rally occurring) most unstable disturbance. When the disturbance wavelength was
forced at 8 mm, the growth of all disturbances of greater wavelength was suppres-
sed. The most remarkable result obtained from the subcritical roughness spacing
is the dramatic effect on transition location: In the absence of artificial rough-
ness, transition occurs at 71% chord. Adding roughness with a spanwise spac-
ing equal to the wavelength of the linearly most unstable wave moves transition
forward to 47% chord. However, subcritical forcing at 8-mm spanwise spacing ac-
tually delays transition beyond the pressure minimum and well beyond 80% chord
(the actual location was beyond view). This promising technique is currently being
evaluated for supersonic flight (Saric & Reed 2002).
Subsequent to the experiments, the NPSE results (Haynes & Reed 2000) con-
firmed this effect. In a DNS solution, Wassermann & Kloker (2002) have shown the
same stabilization due to subcritical forcing. Using the same independent approach
in terms of the calculation of the basic state, they demonstrated the stabilization
due to subcritical roughness and coined the name transition delay by “upstream
flow deformation.”
3.5. Secondary Instabilities

Once stationary vortices reach saturation amplitude, this state can persist for a
significant streamwise distance. The velocity contours of Figures 2 and 4 show
low-momentum fluid above high-momentum fluid, which produces a double in-
flection point in the wall-normal velocity profile. There is also an inflection point
in the spanwise profile. These inflection points are high in the boundary layer, and
the saturated vortices become unstable to a high-frequency secondary instability
that ultimately brings about transition to turbulence. Because of the importance
of the secondary instabilities in determining the location of breakdown of the
laminar flow, there have been a number of investigations, both experimental and
computational, in this area. Bippes (1999) included details on the German efforts,
in particular, the work by Lerche (1996) that emphasizes secondary instabilities
in flows with higher turbulence levels and traveling crossflow waves. Boiko et al.
(1995, 1999) covered recent efforts involving secondary instabilities in the Russian
traveling-wave experiments.
Poll (1985) conducted the first crossflow experiment for which a high-frequency
disturbance was observed prior to transition. Traveling crossflow waves were ob-
served with a dominant frequency of 1.1 kHz for Rec = 0.9 × 106. Increasing the
chord Reynolds number to 1.2 × 106 increased the traveling crossflow frequency
to 1.5 kHz and also included an intermittent signal at 17.5 kHz superposed on
the underlying traveling crossflow waves. Poll (1985) noted that increasing the
Reynolds number beyond 1.2 × 106 resulted in turbulent flow at the measurement
location, so the high-frequency signal appeared only in a narrow range just prior
to transition. Poll (1985) attributed the existence of the high-frequency component
to intermittent turbulence.
Kohama et al. (1991) investigated a high-frequency secondary instability specif-
ically as a source of breakdown. This experiment combined hotwire measurements
and flow visualizations and was intended to determine the location and behavior
of the secondary instability mode relative to visualized breakdown patterns. The
Kohama et al. (1991) experiments clearly show that there is a growing high-
frequency mode in the region upstream of transition that can be associated with an
inviscid instability of the distorted mean flow. However, a concern can be raised be-
cause the measurements were made without a well-controlled primary disturbance
state. Experiments subsequent to this work used arrays of micron-sized roughness
elements near the leading edge that established the spanwise uniformity both of
the stationary vortex amplitudes and of the transition location. Without the benefit
of this technique, the data obtained by Kohama et al. (1991) likely spanned a wide
range of stability behavior despite having been obtained at a single-chord posi-
tion. Improvements in experimental techniques mean that more recent secondary
instability experiments have replaced the work by Kohama et al. (1991) as the best
source for secondary instability data.
Kohama et al. (1996) provided somewhat more detail than Kohama et al. (1991)
by including velocity fluctuation maps that are filtered to give either primary insta-
bility or secondary instability fluctuation levels. Kohama et al. (1996) concluded
that a “turbulent wedge starts from the middle height of the boundary layer” and
that this behavior is different from the usual picture of a turbulent wedge that orig-
inates in the high-shear regions in naphthalene flow-visualization experiments.
A subsequent swept-plate experiment by Kawakami et al. (1999) was conducted
to further refine these measurements. This experiment featured a small speaker
mounted flush with the surface that permitted tracking of particular secondary in-
stability frequencies. Without acoustic forcing, two separate high-frequency bands
of disturbances were observed to be unstable. At a chord Reynolds number of
4.9 × 106, a band located between 600 and 2.5 kHz destabilized just downstream
of x/c = 0.35, and a second band located between 2.5 and 4.0 kHz destabi-
lized just upstream of x/c = 0.50. Transition was observed around x/c = 0.70.
With acoustic forcing applied, the secondary instability frequency with the largest
growth between x/c = 0.40 and x/c = 0.475 was observed to be 1.5 kHz.
In an effort to provide a more concrete experimental database on the behavior
of the secondary instability, White & Saric (2003) conducted a very detailed ex-
periment that tracked the development of secondary instabilities on a swept wing
throughout their development for various Reynolds numbers and roughness con-
figurations. They found a number of unique secondary instability modes that can
occur at different frequency bands and at different locations within the stationary
vortex structure. In this experiment, as many as six distinct modes are observed
between 2 and 20 kHz. The lowest-frequency mode is nearly always the highest
amplitude of all the secondary instabilities and is always associated with an ex-
tremum in the spanwise gradient, ∂U/∂z, which Malik et al. (1996, 1999) refer
to as a mode-I or z mode. Higher-frequency modes include both harmonics of the
lowest-frequency z mode that appear at the same location within the vortex and
distinct mode-II or y modes that form in the ∂U/∂y shear layer in the portion of
the vortex farthest from the wall. The lowest-frequency mode is typically detected
upstream of any of the higher-frequency modes. However, many higher-frequency
modes appear within a very short distance downstream. All of the secondary in-
stability modes are amplified at a much greater rate than the primary stationary
vortices (even prior to their saturation). The rapid growth leads very quickly to the
breakdown of laminar flow, within ∼5% chord of where the secondary instability
is first detected. A consequence of this for transition-prediction methodologies
is that adequate engineering predictions of transition location could be obtained
from simply identifying where the secondary instabilities are destabilized because
they lead to turbulence in such a short distance downstream of their destabilization
location. An interesting feature of the breakdown of the stationary vortex struc-

ture is that it is highly localized. Spectra obtained by White & Saric (2003) at
various points within the structure indicate that the first point to feature a broad,
flat velocity-fluctuation spectrum characteristic of turbulence is very close to the
wall in the region of highest wall shear. Other points in the structure remain es-
sentially laminar for some distance downstream of the initial breakdown location.
This finding supports the notion of a turbulent wedge originating near the wall, in
contrast to what Kohama et al. (1996) concluded.
A successful computational approach to the secondary instability was presented
by Malik et al. (1994), who used an NPSE code to calculate the primary instability
behavior of stationary disturbances of a swept Hiemenz flow. As described pre-
viously, the NPSE approach successfully captures the nonlinear effects including
amplitude saturation. The distorted meanflow provides a basic state for a local,
temporal secondary instability calculation. The most unstable frequency is approx-
imately one order of magnitude greater than the most unstable primary traveling
wave, similar to the results by Kohama et al. (1991), and the peak mode amplitude
is “on top” of the stationary crossflow vortex structure. This location corresponds
to what Malik et al. (1996) (see below) referred to as the mode-II secondary
instability.
In order to obtain a more direct comparison to experimental data, Malik et al.
(1996) used parameters designed to match the conditions found for the swept-
cylinder experiment by Poll (1985) and the swept-wing experiment by Kohama
et al. (1991). The calculations by Malik et al. (1996) revealed that the energy
production for a mode-I instability is dominated by the term hu2w2i∂U2/∂z2 and
the mode-II instability is dominated by hu2v2i∂U2/∂y2, where the subscript 2
refers to a primary-vortex-oriented coordinate system. This energy-production
behavior suggests that the mode-I instability is generated primarily by inflection
points in the spanwise direction and that the mode-II instability is generated by
inflection points in the wall-normal direction. This situation is analogous to the
secondary instabilities of Görtler vortices (Saric 1994). Malik et al. (1996) claimed
that the fluctuations observed by Kohama et al. (1991) are mode-II instabilities, but
the spectral data presented by Kohama et al. (1991) likely includes contributions
of both the type-I and type-II modes. Although one or the other production mech-
anism may dominate for a particular mode, it is too simplistic to assume that only
the spanwise or wall-normal inflection points are responsible for the appearance
of a particular mode; with such a highly distorted 3-D boundary layer, all possible
instabilities must be evaluated.
Malik et al. (1996) also computed the secondary instability behavior observed
by Poll (1985) and predicted a 17.2-kHz mode compared to Poll’s high-frequency
signal, which occurred at 17.5 kHz. Based on the shape of this disturbance, Malik
et al. (1996) claimed that this is a type-II mode. Malik et al. (1999) applied the same
approach to the swept-wing experiments by Reibert et al. (1996). Malik et al. (1999)
again applied a local, temporal stability of the stationary crossflow vortices that are
established by the primary instability and found that better transition correlation
results can be obtained by following the growth of the secondary instability in an

N-factor calculation than by simply basing a prediction on the location at which
the secondary instability destabilizes. A method based on the primary instability
alone cannot adequately predict transition location.
Malik et al. (1999) found that a type-II mode becomes unstable uptream of any
type-I mode. This is not what was observed in the experiment by White & Saric
(2003) in which type-I modes always appeared upstream of type-II modes. This
apparent difference is likely due to the fact that freestream disturbance levels in
the experiment are stronger at frequencies near 3 kHz that correspond to the type-I
modes than at the higher frequencies near 6 kHz that correspond to the type-II
modes. The theory considers only growth rates and does not account for initial
disturbance levels.
An alternative to the approach used by Malik et al. (1994, 1996, 1999) is
presented by Koch et al. (2000), who found the nonlinear equilibrium solution of
the primary flow. Koch et al. (2000) used the nonlinear equilibrium solution as a
receptivity-independent basic state for a Floquet analysis of secondary instabilities
of the saturated vortices. Yet another approach is by Janke & Balakumar (2000),
who used an NPSE for the base flow and a Floquet analysis for the secondary
instabilities. Both Koch et al. (2000) and Janke & Balakumar (2000) are in general
agreement with the various computations by Malik et al. (1994, 1996, 1999).
Högberg & Henningson (1998) pursued a DNS approach to the problem of the
stationary-vortex saturation and the ensuing secondary instability. These authors
imposed an artificial random disturbance at a point where the stationary vortices
are saturated. These disturbances enhance both the low- and high-frequency distur-
bances downstream, and each frequency band has a distinct spatial location, with
the high-frequency disturbance located in the upper part of the boundary layer
and the low-frequency disturbance located in the lower part. Spectral analysis of
the resulting disturbance field shows that the most amplified high frequency is
somewhat more than an order of magnitude higher frequency than the most ampli-
fied traveling primary disturbance. Another high-frequency peak at approximately
twice this frequency is also evident in the spectra. This peak likely corresponds to
a type-II mode, although this feature is not described by the authors.
Wassermann & Klocker (2002) present another highly resolved DNS study of
nonlinear interactions of primary crossflow modes, their secondary instabilities,
and eventual breakdown to turbulence. They emphasize disturbance wave packets
that may be more realistic than single-mode disturbances. One of the most im-
portant findings obtained from the wave-packet approach is that unevenly spaced
primary vortices of differing strengths can interact in such a way as to bring about
an earlier onset of secondary instabilities and breakdown than would be found from
a single-mode disturbance. Wassermann & Kloker (2002) also found that, when
the forcing that initiates the high-frequency secondary instability in their simula-
tion is removed, the secondary instability disturbances are convected downstream,
out of the computational domain. This indicates that the secondary instability is
convective and that the explosiveness of the growth of the secondary instability is
not associated with an absolute instability. The advantage of the DNS solution by
Wassermann & Kloker (2002) is its ability to reveal the rather intimate details of
the breakdown process. As such, their work is one of the foundation contributions.
To date, the various approaches to the secondary instability problem (experi-
mental, NPSE, and DNS) have achieved rather remarkable agreement in terms of
identifying the basic mechanisms of the secondary instability, unstable frequen-
cies, mode shapes, and growth rates. A comparison of three of the most recent
efforts is shown in Figure 5. This comparison shows agreement on the location
of the breakdown and indicates that it is associated with an inflection point in the
spanwise direction (an extremum in ∂U/∂z).
4. SWEPT CYLINDER
The discussion of the crossflow instability in the preceding section pertains to

boundary layers with characteristics typical of large portions of swept wings over
which boundary layers develop in response to weakly favorable pressure gradient
and low wall and streamline curvature. In contrast, boundary layers in the leading-
edge region of swept wings can exhibit different stability characteristics than those
observed farther downstream owing to the much stronger pressure gradient, wall
curvature, and streamline curvature that exist near the leading edge. These flows
are referred to as swept-cylinder flows to distinguish them from both swept-wing
and attachment-line flows.
The swept-cylinder flow near the leading edge is distinct from the flow along
the attachment line. Flow along the attachment line has stability characteristics
different from swept-cylinder flow because of the various roles of surface and
streamline curvature in the two configurations. Attachment-line stability and con-
tamination are discussed at length by Reed & Saric (1989) but are outside of the
scope of this review. Reed et al. (1996) and Theofilis (1998) discuss recent work
concerning attachment-line issues.
For swept-cylinder flows, one of the principal recent findings is the discovery
by Itoh (1994) that highly curved inviscid streamlines produce a centrifugal-type
boundary-layer instability that is unique from the other 3-D boundary-layer insta-
bilities that had been identified at the time of an earlier review by Reed & Saric
(1989). Because the flow near the leading edge of swept cylinders features strongly
curved streamlines, it may exhibit a streamline-curvature instability similar to that
observed at small Reynolds numbers on rotating disks. Although it has yet to be
demonstrated to have flight applicability, the streamline-curvature instability may
play an important role under some set of conditions.
Itoh (1996) specifically examined the flow in the leading-edge region of swept
cylinders. The key findings are that, for intermediate values of the inclination of
the inviscid streamline to the chord direction (i.e., starting somewhat downstream
of the leading edge), the streamline-curvature instability has the lowest critical
Reynolds numbers of all instability modes and that the disturbances produced
Figure 5 Mode-I velocity fluctuation contours: (a) Figure 7 from Malik et al.
(1999), (b) Figure 20b from Wassermann & Kloker (2002), and (c) Figure 11
from White & Saric (2003).
by the streamline-curvature instability take the form of streamwise vortices, and

that these vorices are even more closely aligned with the inviscid stream than are
crossflow vortices. Very close to the leading edge where the streamline inclination
is large, crossflow waves are expected to be the most unstable disturbances. For a
fixed value of the streamline inclination, linear-stability neutral curves for the swept
cylinder exhibit a two-lobed structure that suggests competition between crossflow
and streamline-curvature instabilities, similar to what is observed for rotating-disk
boundary layers. Itoh (1996) showed that the dynamics of this competition depend
on sweep angle. As the sweep is increased the minimum critical Reynolds number
for the streamline curvature instability is unchanged, but the point at which the
critical Reynolds number of the streamline-curvature instability is less than that
of the crossflow instability moves farther downstream, and this means that in the
cases of high sweep, streamline curvature effects will be observed over a larger
region than is typical of lower-sweep configurations. However, Itoh (1996) pointed
out that this result is only valid close to the leading edge, so the results should
not be taken to suggest that the streamline-curvature instability dominates farther
downstream where the basic state deviates from a leading-edge-type flow.
Takagi & Itoh (1998) and Tokugawa et al. (1999) performed swept-cylinder ex-
periments to verify the theoretical predictions by Itoh (1996) regarding the behavior
of the streamline-curvature instability in the leading-edge region. Controlled point-
source disturbances are introduced, and a developing disturbance wedge provides
a means of separating crossflow-related and streamline-curvature-related distur-
bances. Itoh (1966) predicted that crossflow and streamline-curvature instabilities
propagate in opposite directions, and Tokugawa et al. (1999) observed that, in-
side the disturbance wedge, disturbances with phase-distributions characteristic
of the crossflow and streamline-curvature instabilities dominate in two separate
disturbance-amplitude maxima that exist on either side of the wedge, providing
confirmation of the general findings by Itoh (1996). More recently, Itoh (2000)
included nonparallel effects, and Yokokawa et al. (2000) used a DNS model. The
DNS results show that disturbances that propagate in the direction associated with
the streamline-curvature instability are characterized by vorticity oriented primar-
ily in the wall-normal direction in contrast with the previous analyses by Itoh (1995,
1996) that showed streamline-curvature disturbance modes are vortices oriented
in the streamwise and not the wall-normal direction. This discrepancy has not been
resolved.
5. CONCLUSIONS
Boundary-layer transition in 3-D flows is a complicated process involving com-

plex geometries, multiple instability mechanisms, and nonlinear interactions. Yet
significant progress has recently been made toward understanding the instability
and transition characteristics of 3-D flows. In terms of the crossflow problem, the
past decade has produced several important discoveries that include tools, such as
■ instrumentation that can be applied to the flight-test environment,

■ POD methods to interpret wind-tunnel and flight-test transition data,
■ validation with careful experiments of NPSE codes to predict all aspects of
stationary disturbance growth.
Several important factors have also been identified:
■ environmental conditions on the appearance of stationary and traveling waves,
■ secondary instability causing local transition in stationary-crossflow-domina-
ted flows,
■ extreme sensitivity of the stationary disturbance to leading-edge, very small,
surface roughness,
■ nonlinear effects and modal interaction,
■ extreme sensitivity of stationary-wave growth to very weak convex curvature.
One result has been a better understanding of rotating-disk behavior. In addition,
by carefully studying the basic physics, these advances have led to the promising
application of artificial roughness at the leading edge to control the crossflow
instability and delay transition on swept wings in flight.
The study of 3-D boundary-layer instability still offers challenges to the fluid-
mechanics community. Important factors such as receptivity—the process by
which external disturbances enter the boundary layer and create the initial condi-
tions for an instability—are still not completely understood. Yet in spite of this,
careful experiments and companion accurate computations have resulted in signif-
icant progress toward understanding a difficult problem and offer promise of even
further advances in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was sponsored (in part) by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research,
United States Air Force, under grant number F49620-97-1-0520.
The Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics is online at http://fluid.annualreviews.org
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29 Nov 2002 13:42 AR AR159-17-COLOR.tex AR159-17-COLOR.SGM LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: GDL
Figure 2 Velocity contours from Reibert et al. (1996).

29 Nov 2002 13:42 AR AR159-17-COLOR.tex AR159-17-COLOR.SGM LaTeX2e(2002/01/18) P1: GDL
Figure 4 Velocity contour comparisons.

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Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Professor William S. Saric 480-965-2822

We are pleased to provide you a complimentary copy of our Annual Reviews

Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 2003. 35:413–40

STABILITY AND TRANSITION OF

Key Words roughness, nonlinear, saturation, secondary instabilities, rotating disk,

In low-disturbance environments such as flight, boundary-layer transition to tur-

414 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 415

Figure 1 Swept-wing boundary-layer profiles.

416 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 417

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2.1. Nonlinearities, Wave Interactions, and

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 419

2.2. Absolute Instabilities

420 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3.1. Swept Flat Plate

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 421

ROLE OF FREESTREAM FLUCTUATIONS The effect of freestream turbulence on

422 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

to fixed features of the freestream flow generated by nonuniformities of the screens

RECEPTIVITY COMPUTATIONS A number of theoretical and computational ap-

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 423

parameters (the freestream velocity-fluctuation amplitude and surface-roughness

ROLE OF TURBULENCE/ROUGHNESS INTERACTIONS Although receptivity models

424 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3.3. Nonlinear Behavior

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 425

MODAL DECOMPOSITION Radeztsky et al. (1994) described a measurement tech-

EXCITATION OF LESS UNSTABLE MODES Using the modal decomposition tech-

EXCITATION OF SUBCRITICAL MODES Continuing the experiments by Reibert et al.

426 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

STRUCTURE IDENTIFICATION USING POD Chapman et al. (1998) applied linear

CFD COMPARISONS (DNS) DNS have historically been constrained by computer

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 427

428 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3.4. Control with Distributed Roughness

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 429

3.5. Secondary Instabilities

430 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 431

location. An interesting feature of the breakdown of the stationary vortex struc-

432 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

results can be obtained by following the growth of the secondary instability in an

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 433

The discussion of the crossflow instability in the preceding section pertains to

434 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 435

by the streamline-curvature instability take the form of streamwise vortices, and

Boundary-layer transition in 3-D flows is a complicated process involving com-

436 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

■ instrumentation that can be applied to the flight-test environment,

The Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics is online at http://fluid.annualreviews.org

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 437

438 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

3-D BOUNDARY LAYERS 439

440 SARIC ¥ REED ¥ WHITE

Figure 2 Velocity contours from Reibert et al. (1996).

Figure 4 Velocity contour comparisons.

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