This thesis deals with the instabilities of the incompressible boundary-layer flow thatis induced by a disk rotating in otherwise still fluid. The results presented include bothwork in the linear and nonlinear regime and are derived from direct numerical sim-ulations (DNS). Comparisons are made both to theoretical and experimental resultsproviding new insights into the transition route to turbulence. The simulation codeNek5000 has been chosen for the DNS using a spectral-element method (SEM) witha high-order discretization, and the results were obtained through large-scale paral-lel simulations. The known similarity solution of the Navier–Stokes equations for therotating-disk flow, also called the von K ́arm ́an rotating-disk flow, is reproduced by theDNS. With the addition of modelled small simulated roughnesses on the disk surface,convective instabilities appear and data from the linear region in the DNS are anal-ysed and compared with experimental and theoretical data, all corresponding verywell. A theoretical analysis is also presented using a local linear-stability approach,where two stability solvers have been developed based on earlier work. Furthermore,the impulse response of the rotating-disk boundary layer is investigated using DNS.The local response is known to be absolutely unstable and the global response, onthe contrary, is stable if the edge of the disk is assumed to be at radius infinity. Herecomparisons with a finite domain using various boundary conditions give a globalbehaviour that can be both linearly stable and unstable, however always nonlinearlyunstable. The global frequency of the flow is found to be determined by the Rey-nolds number at the confinement of the domain, either by the edge (linear case) or bythe turbulence appearance (nonlinear case). Moreover, secondary instabilities on topof the convective instabilities induced by roughness elements were investigated andfound to be globally unstable. This behaviour agrees well with the experimental flowand acts at a smaller radial distance than the primary global instability. The sharpline corresponding to transition to turbulence seen in experiments of the rotating diskcan thus be explained by the secondary global instability. Finally, turbulence datawere compared with experiments and investigated thoroughly. / <p>QC 20170203</p>

The rotating-disk boundary layer is not only a simpler model for the study of cross-flow instability than swept-wing boundary layers but also a useful simplification of many industrial-flow applications where rotating configurations are present. For the rotating disk, it has been suggested that a local absolute instability, leading to a global instability, is responsible for the small variation in the observed laminar-turbulent transition Reynolds number however the exact nature of the transition is still not fully understood. This thesis aims to clarify certain aspects of the transition process. Furthermore, the thesis considers the turbulent rotating-disk boundary layer, as an example of a class of three-dimensional turbulent boundary-layer flows. The rotating-disk boundary layer has been investigated in an experimental apparatus designed for low vibration levels and with a polished glass disk that gave a smooth surface. The apparatus provided a low-disturbance environment and velocity measurements of the azimuthal component were made with a single hot-wire probe. A new way to present data in the form of a probability density function (PDF) map of the azimuthal fluctuation velocity, which gives clear insights into the laminar-turbulent transition region, has been proposed. Measurements performed with various disk-edge conditions and edge Reynolds numbers showed that neither of these conditions a↵ect the transition process significantly, and the Reynolds number for the onset of transition was observed to be highly reproducible. Laminar-turbulent transition for a ‘clean’ disk was compared with that for a disk with roughness elements located upstream of the critical Reynolds number for absolute instability. This showed that, even with minute surface roughness elements, strong convectively unstable stationary disturbances were excited. In this case, breakdown of the flow occurred before reaching the absolutely unstable region, i.e. through a convectively unstable route. For the rough disk, the breakdown location was shown to depend on the amplitude of individual stationary vortices. In contrast, for the smooth (clean-disk) condition, the amplitude of the stationary vortices did not fix the breakdown location, which instead was fixed by a well-defined Reynolds number. Furthermore, for the clean-disk case, travelling disturbances have been observed at the onset of nonlinearity, and the associated disturbance profile is in good agreement with the eigenfunction of the critical absolute instability. Finally, the turbulent boundary layer on the rotating disk has been investigated. The azimuthal friction velocity was directly measured from the azimuthal velocity profile in the viscous sublayer and the velocity statistics, normalized by the inner scale, are presented. The characteristics of this three-dimensional turbulent boundary-layer flow have been compared with those for the two-dimensional flow over a flat plate and close to the wall they are found to be quite similar but with rather large differences in the outer region. / <p>QC 20150119</p>

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An extended open system such as traffic flow is said to be convectively unstable if perturbations of the stationary state grow but propagate in only one direction, so they eventually leave the system. By means of data analysis, simulations, and analytical calculations, we give evidence that this concept is relevant for instabilities of congested traffic flow. We analyze detector data from several hundred traffic jams and propose estimates for the linear growth rate, the wavelength, the propagation velocity, and the severity of the associated bottleneck that can be evaluated semi-automatically. Scatter plots of these quantities reveal systematic dependencies. On the theoretical side, we derive, for a wide class of microscopic and macroscopic traffic models, analytical criteria for convective and absolute linear instabilities. Based on the relative positions of the stability limits in the fundamental diagram, we divide these models into five stability classes which uniquely determine the set of possible elementary spatiotemporal patterns in open systems with a bottleneck. Only two classes, both dominated by convective instabilities, are compatible wiqth observations. By means of approximate solutions of convectively unstable systems with sustained localized noise, we show that the observed spatiotemporal phenomena can also be described analytically. The parameters of the analytical expressions can be inferred from observations, and also (analytically) derived from the model equations.

Rotating-disk flow has been investigated not only as a simple model of cross flow instability to compare with swept-wing flow but also for industrial flow applications with rotating configurations. However the exact nature of laminar-turbulent transi- tion on the rotating-disk flow is still major problem and further research is required for it to be fully understood, in particular, the laminar-turbulent transition process with absolute instability. In addition the studies of the rotating-disk turbulent boundary- layer flow are inadequate to understand the physics of three-dimensional turbulent boundary-layer flow. In present thesis, a rotating-rotating disk boundary-layer flow has been inves- tigated experimentally using hot-wire anemometry. A glass disk with a flat surface has been prepared to archieve low disturbance rotating-disk environment. Azimuthal velocity measurements using a hot-wire probe have been taken for various conditions. To get a better insight into the laminar-turbulent transition region, a new way to describe the process is proposed using the probability density function (PDF) map of azimuthal fluctuation velocity. The effect of the edge of the disk on the laminar-turbulent transition process has been investigated. The disturbance growth of azimuthal fluctuation velocity as a function of Reynolds number has a similar trend irrespective of the various edge conditions. The behaviour of secondary instability and turbulent breakdown has been in- vestigated. It has been found that the kinked azimuthal velocity associated with secondary instability just before turbulent breakdown became less apparent at a cer- tain wall normal heights. Furthermore the turbulent breakdown of the stationary mode seems not to be triggered by its amplitude, however, depend on the appearance of the travelling secondary instability. Finally, the turbulent boundary layer on a rotating disk has been investigated. An azimuthal friction velocity has been directly measured from the azimuthal velocity profile in the viscous sub-layer. The turbulent statistics normalized by the inner and outer sclaes are presented. / QC 20120529

This thesis deals with the instabilities of the incompressible boundary-layer flow that is induced by a disk rotating in otherwise still fluid. The results presented are mostly limited to linear instabilities derived from direct numerical simulations (DNS) but with the objective that further work will focus on the nonlinear regime, providing greater insights into the transition route to turbulence. The numerical code Nek5000 has been chosen for the DNS using a spectral-element method in an effort to reduce spurious effects from low-order discretizations. Large-scale parallel simulations have been used to obtain the present results. The known similarity solution of the Navier–Stokes equation for the rotating-disk flow, also called the von Karman flow, is investigated and can be reproduced with good accuracy by the DNS. With the addition of small roughnesses on the disk surface, convective instabilities appear and data from the DNS are analysed and compared with experimental and theoretical data. A theoretical analysis is also presented using a local linear-stability approach, where two stability solvers have been developedbased on earlier work. A good correspondence between DNS and theory is found and the DNS results are found to explain well the behaviour of the experimental boundary layer within the range of Reynolds numbers for small amplitude (linear) disturbances. The comparison between the DNS and experimental results, presented for the first time here, shows that the DNS allows (for large azimuthal domains) a range of unstable azimuthal wavenumbers β to exist simultaneously with the dominantβ varying, which is not accounted for in local theory, where β is usually fixed for each Reynolds number at which the stability analysis is applied. Furthermore, the linear impulse response of the rotating-disk boundary layer is investigated using DNS. The local response is known to be absolutely unstable. The global response is found to be stable if the edge of the disk is assumed to be at infinity, and unstable if the domain is finite and the edge of the domain is placed such that there is a large enough pocket region for the absolute instability to develop. The global frequency of the flow is found to be determined by the edge Reynolds number. / <p>QC 20140708</p>

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