The objective of receptivity is to investigate the mechanisms by which external disturbances generate unsta- ble waves. In hypersonic boundary layers, a new receptivity process is revealed, which is that fast and slow acoustics through nonlinear interaction can excite the second mode near the lower-branch of the second mode. They can generate a sum-frequency disturbance though nonlinear interaction, which can excite the second mode. This receptivity process is generated by the nonlinear interaction and the nonparal- lel nature of the boundary layer. The receptivity coefficient is sensitive to the wavenumber difference between the sumfrequency disturbance and the lower-branch second mode. When the wavenumber difference is zero, the receptivity coefficient is maximum. The receptivity coefficient decreases with the increase of the wavenumber difference. It is also found that the evolution of the sum-frequency disturbance grows linearly in the beginning. It indicates that the forced term generated by the sum-frequency disturbance resonates with the second mode.
The determination of the critical transition Reynolds number is of practical importance for some engineering problems. However, it is not available with the current theoretical method, and has to rely on experiments. For supersonic/hypersonic boundary layer flows, the experimental method for determination is not feasible either. Therefore, in this paper, a numerical method for the determination of the critical transition Reynolds number for an incompressible plane channel flow is proposed. It is basically aimed to test the feasibility of the method. The proposed method is extended to determine the critical Reynolds number of the supersonic/hypersonic boundary layer flow in the subsequent papers.
The study on the global instability of a Stokes layer, which is a typical unsteady flow, is usually a paradigm for understanding the instability and transition of unsteady flows. Previous studies suggest that the neutral curve of the global instability obtained by the Floquet theory is only mapped out in a limited range of wave numbers （0.2 ≤ a ≤ 0.5）. In this paper, the global instability is investigated with numerical simulations for all wave numbers. It is revealed that the peak of the disturbances displays irregularity rather than the periodic evolution while the wave number is beyond the above range. A ＂neutral point＂ is redefined, and a neutral curve of the global instability is presented for the whole wave numbers with this new definition. This work provides a deeper understanding of the global instability of unsteady flows.
It is widely accepted that a robust and efficient method to compute the linear spatial amplified rate ought to be developed in three-dimensional （3D） boundary layers to predict the transition with the e^N method, especially when the boundary layer varies significantly in the spanwise direction. The 3D-linear parabolized stability equation （3D- LPSE） approach, a 3D extension of the two-dimensional LPSE （2D-LPSE）, is developed with a plane-marching procedure for investigating the instability of a 3D boundary layer with a significant spanwise variation. The method is suitable for a full Mach number region, and is validated by computing the unstable modes in 2D and 3D boundary layers, in both global and local instability problems. The predictions are in better agreement with the ones of the direct numerical simulation （DNS） rather than a 2D-eigenvalue problem （EVP） procedure. These results suggest that the plane-marching 3D-LPSE approach is a robust, efficient, and accurate choice for the local and global instability analysis in 2D and 3D boundary layers for all free-stream Mach numbers.
