Transient growth in vortices with axial flow

Abstract

We investigate transient growth in high-Reynolds-number vortices with axial flow. Manycases of vortex instability are not fully explained by strong exponential instability modes, and transient growth could offer an alternative route to breakdown in such cases. Strong transient growth is found, in agreement with previous studies. We first discuss the problem by reference to ducted vortices which model aeroengine flow. The transient growth is inviscid in character, and in this paper we specifically interpret it as an effect of the inviscid continuous spectrum. The relevant inviscid theory explains new scalings which we find for the transient growth, which are generalizations of the quadratic scaling seen previously in two-dimensional flows and non-swirling pipe flows. We then turn to a second case, of interest for vortex breakdown, the Batchelor vortex, and present calculations of the transient growth. Large growth is possible, especially for the helical modes (with azimuthal wavenumber |m| = 1). The general trends are complicated by a number ofissues, including a long-wavelength effect and a resonance effect, both of which were recently discovered for a vortex without axial flow and are found here to be present in the Batchelor vortex also. Overall, the results suggest that strong transient effects are present in the moderate- to high-swirl regime of practical interest (swirl number q ≳ 2). Foraxisymmetric (m = 0) and higher (|m| > 1) modes, however, transient effects are not found to be significant.