On the stability of a laminar wall jet with heat transfer (Q1975856)

The hydrodynamic stability of a low-speed, plane, non-isothermal laminar wall jet under constant temperature boundary conditions is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The stability calculations show that two unstable eigenmodes coexisting at moderate Reynolds numbers are significantly affected by heat transfer. Heating destabilizes the flow while cooling stabilizes it. However, large-scale instabilities associated with the inflection point of velocity profile still amplify in spite of the high level of stabilizing temperature difference. The calculated stability characteristics of the wall jet with heat transfer are compared with experimental data, showing an excellent agreement for small amplitudes of imposed perturbations. The agreement is less good for phase velocities of the sub-harmonic wave, and this is attributed to experimental difficulties and to nonlinear effects.