No description available.

Various researchers are interested in the structure of the surface pressure fluctuations for the development and use of noise prediction techniques for helicopter and turbomachinery rotors. This study, conducted in the Virginia Tech low speed boundary layer wind tunnel, covered the effects of zero and favorable streamwise pressure gradient flows on the surface pressure fluctuation spectra, coherence and convective wave speeds in turbulent boundary layers for momentum Reynolds numbers from 3000 to 18,800. The acceleration parameter, pressure gradient flow. K is near 2x10⁻⁷ for the favorable Small pinhole condenser microphones were used to obtain the surface pressure fluctuation data for all test cases. The longitudinal and lateral coherence functions and the convective wave speeds were obtained for both streamwise pressure gradient flows. The results presented are for the surface pressure fluctuation spectra nondimensionalized by different groupings of the outer and inner boundary layer variables. The grouping using the outer variables, U_e, π_w and δ₁ collapse the spectra for the low to middle range of frequencies for most test cases. The grouping using the inner variables, U_π and ν, collapse the spectra for the middle to high range of frequencies for all test cases. The value of p¹/r_w was near 3.8 and 2.8 for the smallest values of d⁺ in the zero and favorable pressure gradient flows, respectively. The spectral data was corrected using the correction developed by G.M. Corcos, but the pinhole correction developed by Bull and Thomas was not used in the data reduction process. However, some discussion is included on the effects of the pinhole correction for the results of this study. The coherence exhibits a decay that is not exponential in some cases, but the Corcos similarity parameters ωΔx/U_c and ωΔz/U_c collapse the data for all test cases. C The ratio of U_c/U_e shows an increase with increasing ωδ₁/U_e up to a certain value of ωδ₁/U_e where U_c/U_e becomes constant. This was observed in the present results for both streamwise pressure gradient flows. The experimental results presented show good agreement with previous research. / M.S.

In canonical boundary layer transition, a uniform laminar flow perturbed by 2-d T-S waves develops downstream into 3-d waves, which eventually break down with turbulent spots appearing. Previous experimental studies have established that this kind of development is absent, is by-passed, in transition induced by free-stream turbulence or surface roughness. However a common, characteristic feature of the late, three-dimensional stage is the prevalence of streamwise vorticity and streaks. Isolated and multiple streamwise vortices are present in both, canonical transition and bypass transition. This thesis de-scribes an experimental study of the late stages of boundary layer transition after a single or a pair of streamwise vortices have formed. The present work can be considered both as a study of transition induced by surface roughness and as a study of the late stages of transition in general. The experiments were made on a zero-pressure-gradient boundary layer in a low speed wind tunnel. Various hill configurations, mounted on a flat plate, were used to create isolated and multiple streamwise vortices. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) and hot-wire anemometry used for measurements. Numerical simulations of the initial laminar stage were carried out to understand the vortex formation at the edge of the hills. Computations have shown that the streamwise vorticity induced by the spanwise asymmetry of the hill rolls up into a single streamwise vortex. The streamwise vortex causes high speed fluid to be brought close to the wall and low speed fluid to move away. In turn, streamwise velocity profiles acquire inflections in both the spanwise and wall-normal directions. Previous studies have concluded that the inviscid instability of inflectional profiles are essential, or at least common, precursors to transition. Another view of the structure of bypass transition induced involves a secondary instability of streaks that can be sinuous or varicose. These two types follow from instabilities of the inflectional spanwise and wall-normal profiles of the streamwise velocity, respectively. However the present study confirms that the occurrence of inflections is not sufficient for transition. The first series of experiments were with smooth Gaussian shaped hills that spanned one-half of the tunnel. Two hill shapes were taken, steep and shallow. Isolated streamwise vortices formed by the side of the hill. Hill heights were less than that of the incoming boundary layer, and they were mounted within the subcritical part of the boundary layer. At low free stream speeds, streaks formed, with inflectional wall-normal and spanwise velocity profiles, but without effecting transition. The necessary conditions for inviscid instability Rayleigh’s inflexion-point theorem and Fjortoft’s theorem are satisfied for these low-speed non-transitional cases. Transition observed at higher speeds show two kinds of development. With the steep hill, the streamwise vortex is not too close to the plate and it exhibits oscillations over some distance before flow breaks down to turbulence; streamwise velocity signals exhibited the passage of a wave packet which intensified before break-down to turbulence. This dominant mode persists far downstream from the hill even while the flow breaks down and frequency content grows over a range of scales. With the shallow hill, the breakdown develops continuously without such a precursor stage; there was a broad range of frequencies present immediately downstream of the hill. For the steep hill the maximum fluctuation is observed on the upwash side of the vortex. With the shallow hill, the fluctuation level is maximum at the location between low and high speed streak. Features of breakdown to transition caused by these single streamwise vortices are found to be similar to those in transition by other causes such as surface roughness, freestream turbulence etc. With the steep hill, the growth of fluctuations(urms, the peak levels of streamwise velocity component fluctuations) is remarkably similar to that in the K-type transition. Unlike in freestream induced transition, the initial growth of u2 rms,max with downstream distance was not linear. Profiles of urms/urms,max vs. y/δ∗where δ∗,is the displacement thickness is partially matching with the optimal disturbances, for the steep hill case. The phase velocity matches as in previous measurements of roughness induced transition. The flow exhibits the breakup of a shear layer near the outer edge of the boundary layer into successive vortices. This breakdown pattern resembles to those in the recent numerical simulations. The passing frequency of these vortices scales with freestream velocity, similar to that in single-roughness induced transition. Quadrant analysis of streamwise and wall-normal velocity fluctuations show large ejection events in the outer layer. The difference in the route to transition between the steep and shallow hills was considered to the relative proximity of the initial streamwise vortex to the flat plate and its interaction with the wall. To examine this conjecture, two configurations were prepared to produce two types of counter-rotating streamwise vortices. One is a hill that span the tunnel except for a short gap, and the other, its complement, is a short span hill. The short-gap hill produce a pair of vortices with the common flow directed away from the wall. This resulted in a separation bubble that formed a short distance downstream and breakdown to turbulence. The short-span hill configuration seems to have a stabilizing effect. With the short gap hill, transition occurs for lower freestream speeds than with the isolated vortices considered before. Also, the breakdown location is further downstream when the gap is larger. The initial velocity profiles look similar for transitional and non-transitional flow cases, and are inflectional, which clearly indicates that inflectional instabilities are not effective here. A separation index was computed to identify unsteadiness of the separated flow region. The separation is itself steady, where as the reattachment is unsteady. Fluctuations grow near this reattachment zone. The unsteadiness of the reattachment coexists with the appearance of strong fluctuations and transition. It is likely that the this last stage of breakdown results when the shear layer, lifted up by the separation bubble, breaks down near the edge of the boundary layer and the consequent unsteadiness is in the reattachment also. Coherent cat’s-eye-like patterns were observed in a longitudinal, plane normal to the wall. With isolated vortices sinuous oscillations and with stream-wise vortex pairs varicose oscillations were observed in wall-parallel planes. In both cases passing frequency of these vortices scales with freestream velocity. Λ-type vortices were identified in spanwise plane with counter-rotating legs. These experiments have identified some possible roles of streamwise vortices in the last stages of boundary layer transition. Vortices may undergo their own instability in the background shear layer, evident as oscillations, if they are not too close to the wall. Otherwise the breakdown is without such a stage. Wall interaction of these vortices seems to be a necessary last stage. Inflectional instability is not indicated. Wall interaction that results in separation results in break-down in the unsteady reattachment zone. Breakdown coexists with the reattachment and not at separation, even though it may be the separating shear layer that breaks down.

Wall transpiration, in the form of wall-normal suction or blowing through a permeable wall, is a relatively simple and effective technique to control the behaviour of a boundary layer. For its potential applications for laminar-turbulent transition and separation delay (suction) or for turbulent drag reduction and thermal protection (blowing), wall transpiration has over the past decades been the topic of a significant amount of studies. However, as far as the turbulent regime is concerned, fundamental understanding of the phenomena occurring in the boundary layer in presence of wall transpiration is limited and considerable disagreements persist even on the description of basic quantities, such as the mean streamwise velocity, for the rather simplified case of flat-plate boundary-layer flows without pressure gradients. In order to provide new experimental data on suction and blowing boundary layers, an experimental apparatus was designed and brought into operation. The perforated region spans the whole 1.2 m of the test-section width and with its streamwise extent of 6.5 m is significantly longer than previous studies, allowing for a better investigation of the spatial development of the boundary layer. The quality of the experimental setup and measurement procedures was verified with extensive testing, including benchmarking against previous results on a canonical zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layer (ZPG TBL) and on a laminar asymptotic suction boundary layer. The present experimental results on ZPG turbulent suction boundary layers show that it is possible to experimentally realize a turbulent asymptotic suction boundary layer (TASBL) where the boundary layer mean-velocity profile becomes independent of the streamwise location, so that the suction rate constitutes the only control parameter. TASBLs show a mean-velocity profile with a large logarithmic region and without the existence of a clear wake region. If outer scaling is adopted, using the free-stream velocity and the boundary layer thickness (δ99) as characteristic velocity and length scale respectively, the logarithmic region is described by a slope Ao=0.064 and an intercept Bo=0.994, independently from the suction rate (Γ). Relaminarization of an initially turbulent boundary layer is observed for Γ&gt;3.70×10−3. Wall suction is responsible for a strong damping of the velocity fluctuations, with a decrease of the near-wall peak of the velocity-variance profile ranging from 50% to 65% when compared to a canonical ZPG TBL at comparable Reτ. This decrease in the turbulent activity appears to be explained by an increased stability of the near-wall streaks. Measurements on ZPG blowing boundary layers were conducted for blowing rates ranging between 0.1% and 0.37% of the free-stream velocity and cover the range of momentum thickness Reynolds number 10000&lt;Reθ&lt;36000. Wall-normal blowing strongly modifies the shape of the boundary-layer mean-velocity profile. As the blowing rate is increased, the clear logarithmic region characterizing the canonical ZPG TBLs gradually disappears. A good overlap among the mean velocity-defect profiles of the canonical ZPG TBLs and of the blowing boundary layers for all the Re number and blowing rates considered is obtained when normalization with the Zagarola-Smits velocity scale is adopted. Wall blowing enhances the intensity of the velocity fluctuations, especially in the outer region. At sufficiently high blowing rates and Reynolds number, the outer peak in the streamwise-velocity fluctuations surpasses in magnitude the near-wall peak, which eventually disappears. / Genom att använda sig av genomströmmande ytor, med sugning eller blåsning, kan man relativt enkelt och effektivt påverka ett gränsskikts tillstånd. Genom sin potential att påverka olika strömningsfysikaliska fenomen så som att senarelägga både avlösning och omslaget från laminär till turbulent strömning (genom sugning) eller som att exempelvis minska luftmotståndet i turbulenta gränsskikt och ge kyleffekt (genom blåsning), så har ett otaligt antal studier genomförts på området de senaste decennierna. Trots detta så är den grundläggande förståelsen bristfällig för de strömningsfenomen som inträffar i turbulenta gränsskikt över genomströmmande ytor. Det råder stora meningsskiljaktigheter om de mest elementära strömningskvantiteterna, såsom medelhastigheten, när sugning och blåsning tillämpas även i det mest förenklade gränsskiktsfallet nämligen det som utvecklar sig över en plan platta utan tryckgradient. För att ta fram nya experimentella data på gränsskikt med sugning och blåsning genom ytan så har vi designat en ny experimentell uppställning samt tagit den i bruk.Den genomströmmande ytan spänner över hela bredden av vindtunnelns mätsträcka (1.2 m) och är 6.5 m lång i strömningsriktningen och är därmed betydligt längre än vad som använts i tidigare studier. Detta gör det möjligt att bättre utforska gränsskiktet som utvecklas över ytan i strömningsriktningen. Kvaliteten på den experimentella uppställningen och valda mätprocedurerna har verifierats genom omfattande tester, som även inkluderar benchmarking mot tidigare resultat på turbulenta gränsskikt utan tryckgradient eller blåsning/sugning och på laminära asymptotiska sugningsgränsskikt. De experimentella resultaten på turbulenta gränsskikt med sugning bekräftar för första gången att det är möjligt att experimentellt sätta upp ett turbulent asymptotiskt sugningsgränsskikt där gränsskiktets medelhastighetsprofil blir oberoende av strömningsriktningen och där sugningshastigheten utgör den enda kontrollparametern. Det turbulenta asymptotiska sugningsgränsskiktet visar sig ha en medelhastighetsprofil normalt mot ytan med en lång logaritmisk region och utan förekomsten av en yttre vakregion. Om man använder yttre skalning av medelhastigheten, med friströmshastigheten och gränsskiktstjockleken som karaktäristisk hastighet respektive längdskala, så kan det logaritmiska området beskrivas med en lutning på Ao=0.064 och ett korsande värde med y-axeln på Bo=0.994, som är oberoende av sugningshastigheten. Om sugningshasigheten normaliserad med friströmshastigheten överskrider värdet 3.70x10^-3 så återgår det ursprungligen turbulenta gränsskiktet till att vara laminärt. Sugningen genom väggen dämpar hastighetsfluktuationerna i gränsskiktet med upp till 50-60% vid direkt jämförelse av det inre toppvärdet i ett turbulent gränsskikt utan sugning och vid jämförbart Reynolds tal. Denna minskning av turbulent aktivitet verkar härstamma från en ökad stabilitet av hastighetsstråken närmast ytan. Mätningar på turbulenta gränsskikt med blåsning har genomförts för blåsningshastigheter mellan 0.1 och 0.37% av friströmshastigheten och täcker Reynoldstalområdet (10-36)x10^3, med Reynolds tal baserat på rörelsemängds-tjockleken. Vid blåsning genom ytan får man en stark modifiering av formen på hastighetesfördelningen genom gränsskiktet. När blåsningshastigheten ökar så kommer till slut den logaritmiska regionen av medelhastigheten, karaktäristisk för turbulent gränsskikt utan blåsning, att gradvis försvinna. God överens-stämmelse av medelhastighetsprofiler mellan turbulenta gränsskikt med och utan blåsning erhålls för alla Reynoldstal och blåsningshastigheter när profilerna normaliseras med Zagarola-Smits hastighetsskala. Blåsning vid väggen ökar intensiteten av hastighetsfluktuationerna, speciellt i den yttre regionen av gränsskiktet. Vid riktigt höga blåsningshastigheter och Reynoldstal så kommer den yttre toppen av hastighetsfluktuationer i gränsskiktet att överskrida den inre toppen, som i sig gradvis försvinner. / <p>QC 20171101</p>

The initial slow viscous growth of the Tollmein-Schlichting wave in a canonical boundary layer transition is absent in bypass and wake-induced transitions. Although there have been a great deal of studies pertaining to bypass transition in boundary layers, the underlying breakdown mechanism is not clearly understood and it continues to be a subject of interest. Similarly, a wake-induced transition caused by Karman wake in the freestream remains poorly understood. The breakdown in this case is caused by anisotropic disturbances containing large scale unsteadiness in the freestream. Differing view points among workers on the transition process have also added to the complexities. In this thesis, bypass and wake-induced boundary layer transitions studied experimentally towards understanding various flow breakdown features are reported. The measurements were made on a flat plate boundary layer in a low-speed wind tunnel. The particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique was extensively used. Various grids were used to generate nearly isotropic freestream turbulence. A circular cylinder was placed at different heights from the plate leading edge to generate Karman wake in the freestream. Two cylinders of different diameters were used to vary the Reynolds number(based on the cylinder diameter). The PIV measurements being simultaneous over a large spatial domain enabled to assess various spatial transitional flow structures. In the case of bypass transition, the streamwise velocity fluctuation, u, is found to exhibit some organized negative and positive fluctuations that dominate the flow during transition, and confirm the simulation results reported in the literature. These positive and negative u fluctuations are found to be associated with the streak unsteadiness. By conditional sampling of these positive and negative u fluctuations, we find that urms (root-mean-squaredof u)can be expressed as a linear combination of urms,f and urms,b,i.e. urms = a(urms,f + urms,b); ais constant, and the subscripts fand bdenote the positive and nega-tive ufluctuations, respectively. Both urms,f and urms,b arefoundto follow the non-modal growth distribution. The wall-normal results clearly show that an inclined shear layer is often associated with an organized structure of negative ufluctuations and an inflectional in-stantaneous velocity profile. These inclined shear layers appear to be similar to those in ribbon-induced transition. The turbulent spot precursor appears to be the vortex shedding from an oscillating in-clined shear layer. Interestingly, the normalized vortex shedding fre-quency is found to be Reynolds number invariant, as in the case of ribbon-induced transition. The present study also confirms the sim-ulated turbulent spot features, including a thin log-law at the break-down stage. The spanwise plane PIV results reveal the signature of streak secondary instability in the flow in terms of symmetric and anti-symmetric streaks oscillations. The initial growth of streak amplitude is followed by a slow decay. The maximum streak amplitude is well above30% of the freestream velocity. These two aspects provide support to the streak instability analysis reported in the literature. While the present wake-induced transition study provides some sup-port to the available numerical simulation and experimental results, some new results have also emerged. The measured sharp rise in the disturbance energy during transition is found to be closer to the simulated result, compared to the difference reported in the literature. The spanwise vortices in the early stage, as also seen in other experimental studies, deform leading to the formation of lambda structures, the signature of which is found by the linear stochastic analysis. With increased Reynolds number and decreased cylinder height from the plate, the physical size of the lambda structure is found to decrease. These lambda structures are often found to appear in a staggered manner in the spanwise plane, as in the case of sub-harmonic boundary layer transition. Although a sub-harmonic peak in the frequency spectra is reported in the literature, as also in the present study, the clear staggered pattern went unnoticed. Streamwise streaks are subsequently generated due to the mean shear stretching of these lambda vortices. The spanwise spacing of these streamwise streaks is found to be comparable with the recent simulation results. Also, these streaks are found to undergo somewhat sinuous-like oscillations, compared to the only varicose type oscillations reported in the literature. The streak amplitude is found to saturate at about 35% of the freestream speed. Here again an inclined shear layer in the wall-normal plane is associated with organized negative u fluctuations and an inflectional instantaneous velocity profile. The movement of the peak urms towards the wall is found to be due to the positive u fluctuation, which follows a hairpin-like structure. The inclined shear layers herein are associated with the lambda or a hairpin-like structure. As in a by-pass transition, an inclined shear layer, vortex shedding from it, the imprint of which is also found in the linear stochastic analysis are present. The normalized high frequency shed vortices is found to be Reynolds number invariant in the present wake-induced transition, as in ribbon-induced and bypass transitions. Compared to the re-cent suggestion that the parent-offspring mechanism is the governing self-sustaining mechanism in the boundary layer, the present study suggests that streak-instability mechanism is also present. The proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) analysis of the experimental data was carried out with an emphasis on the bypass transition case studied. The first few energetic POD modes are found to capture the dominant flow structures, i.e. the organized positive and negative u fluctuations. In the case of bypass transition, the first two energetic POD modes are self-similar, i.e. independent of the freestream turbulent intensity and the Reynolds number. An attempt is also made to construct a low-dimensional model with the POD eigenfunction modes to predict the qualitative dynamics of bypass transition. This has revealed the existence of a traveling disturbance in the bypass transition. On the whole, the present study shows some similar breakdown features in bypass and wake-induced transitions, although more studies in this regard are essential.

The large scale and smaller production scale motions contain over the half of turbulent kinetic energy in the flow. These motions are responsible for sediment transport and deposition processes, contaminant mixing and stream bio-diversity. These motions are corresponded to the left and right bounds of -1 power region of the spectral energy. The most well recognized and highly studied power law has been upon Kolmogorov’s -5/3 power law region of the streamwise spectral energy density and this research focused on investigating the -1 power region bounds and energy. Energy budget and time-average turbulence calculations along with spectral analysis are performed to investigate the characteristics of large scale and smaller production scale motions in the flow. Spectral analyses of turbulent flows offers the utility of investigating the distribution of turbulent energy across wavenumber scales as well as identifying prominent wavenumbers at which the periodicity of coherent processes are centered. In turn, the results of spectral analyses can be coupled with visualization of coherent vortices and time-average turbulence results to advance our understanding of turbulent energy distribution and dominant processes that drive environmental phenomena such as sediment transport and solute transfer. A new method for identifying the wavenumbers associated to the macroturbulence and bursting is introduced. Also this study offers a new scaling method of energy spectral that derived from the turbulence energy model for an equilibrium boundary layer. Results of this study show an equilibrium boundary layer for the outer region of the flow in which the flow is uniform and fully-developed. Also for a given roughness, the results of this study provide an approach to calculate the streamwise turbulence kinetic energy of bursting and macroturbulence which show a linkage of this work to applications such as bedload and suspended load sediment transport.

No description available.

A study of the fluctuating wall pressure and unsteady velocity field in a flat plate turbulent boundary layer flow was conducted over a moderate range of Reynolds numbers to better understand the mechanisms by which the two fields are coupled. Individual and coincident measurements of the fluctuating pressure and velocity fields were acquired using a 20 element hydrophone array and a two-component Laser Doppler Anemometer, respectively. Estimates of the velocity power spectral density (PSD) revealed two primary trends predicted by turbulence theory, k⁻¹ in the region of (ky) = 10⁰ due to anisotropy of the large scales, and k⁻⁵/³ for larger values of (ky) where structures appear more isotropic. The mean velocity profiles, having been collapsed using outer scaling variables, exhibited the presence of a slightly adverse pressure gradient with a n = 6 power law shape. As for the fluctuating wall pressure, increased Reynolds numbers produced increases in the amplitude and frequency of the characteristic signatures from which the pressure spectral densities were also found to collapse reasonably well using outer scaling variables. The results suggest the location in the flow where the mechanisms responsible for driving the fluctuating wall pressure signatures reside. Space-time correlations and frequency-wavenumber analysis reveal a convective ridge in the fluctuating wall pressure corresponding to the passage of several organized structures at 75% of the free stream velocity for all Reynolds numbers tested. / text

Unsteady two-dimensional laminar flow of an incompressible viscous fluid over a periodically grooved wall is investigated by numerical simulation using two independent finite-difference methods. One is the vorticity-stream function method, and the other involves the vorticity-velocity induction law formulation. The fluid motion is initiated impulsively from rest and is assumed to be spatially periodic in the streamwise direction. The flow field, which includes the time development of the shear layer and the recirculating flow in the zone of separation, is examined in detail during the transient phase to the steady-state condition. The analytical and numerical formulations, which include the implementation of the boundary conditions, are derived in detail. The generation of vorticity at the solid surfaces is modelled differently in the two approaches. This vorticity production plays an important role in determining the surface-pressure distribution and the drag coefficient. Characteristics of the transient solution for a moderate Reynolds number in the laminar range are presented. Included with the graphical results are the temporal development of the constant stream function contours, including the dividing contour between the zone of separation and the main flow, and the constant vorticity contours. These latter contours show the interactions of separated vortices. The flow is found to approach a steady-state condition comprising an undisturbed uniform flow, a nonuniform irrotational flow, a shear layer adjacent to the grooved wall, and a recirculating vortex flow in the groove. Results also include the time development of the surface shear stress, surface pressure, drag coefficient and several typical velocity profiles, which characterize the flow in the recirculating region. Comparisons of the results obtained by the two numerical methods are made during the major development of the flow. The results showing the general features of the flow development including the time development of the shear layer, free shear layer and recirculating vortex flow are in good agreement. However, a significant deviation does exist at early times for the distribution of surface pressure, which accordingly has noticeable effect on the drag coefficient. Nevertheless, the gap between the distributions of surface pressure and drag coefficients dies out gradually as time progresses. The form of the stream function and vorticity contours at the steady state agrees well with those obtained from a recent numerical investigation of the steady flow in grooved channels.

Transition in high-speed boundary layers is investigated using direct numerical simulation (DNS). A compressible Navier-Stokes code that is specifically tailored towards accurate and efficient simulations of boundary layer stability and boundary layer transition was developed and thoroughly validated. Particular emphasis was put into the adoption of a high-order accurate spatial discretization including a boundary closure with the same stencil width as the interior scheme. Oblique breakdown has been shown, using both temporal and spatial DNS, to be a viable route to transition for the boundary layer of the sharp 7° cone at Mach 3.5 investigated by Corke 2002. A 'wedge-shaped' transitional regime was observed to be characteristic for this type of breakdown on the cone geometry. Furthermore, it was shown that the dominance of the longitudinal mode in the nonlinear transition regime of oblique breakdown is due to a continuously nonlinear forced transient growth. That is the primary pair of oblique waves permanently 'seeds' disturbances into the longitudinal mode, where these disturbances exhibit non-modal unstable behavior. In addition to the simulations of controlled transition via oblique breakdown, six simulations have been conducted and analyzed where transition is initiated by multiple primary waves. Despite the broader spectrum of primary waves, typical features of oblique breakdown are still apparent in these simulations and therefore, it may be conjectured, that oblique breakdown initiated by one primary pair of waves is a good model for the nonlinear processes in natural transition. Furthermore, hypersonic boundary layer stability and transition for a flared and a straight cone at Mach 6 was investigated. In particular, a comparative investigation between both geometries regarding the K-type breakdown was performed in order to give some indications towards the open question how strong the nonlinear transition processis altered by the cone flare.