Stability of plane Couette flow with constant wall transpiration

Abstract

Plane Couette flow with constant wall transpiration, i.e., constant blowing from below and constant suction from above, is a solution of the Navier-Stokes equations in terms of exponentials. It is characterized by two Reynolds numbers Re and ReV, where Re parametrizes the moving wall and ReV describes the influence of the transpiration. For this flow the modified Orr-Sommerfeld equation admits one of the very few exact solutions in terms of hypergeometric functions. Based on this, we solve the stability problem, though for the main part focus on temporal stability. For small wall-transpiration rates up to ReV≃6.71, the flow remains unconditionally stable, analogous to the classical Couette flow for arbitrary Reynolds numbers Re. By further increasing ReV an instability sets in and a minimum critical Reynolds number of Re=668350.491 is reached at ReV=9.799. Hence, around this point, the destabilizing effect of blowing outweighs the stabilizing effect of suction. By further increasing the transpiration rate beyond this point, the corresponding critical Reynolds number Re increases again and continues to grow. This limiting case is accompanied by the development of a strong boundary-layer-like velocity profile near the upper wall and the flow transitions to the asymptotic suction boundary layer (ASBL). Thus, the present analysis comprises the whole range from classical Couette flows extended by transpiration to the ASBL, which is known to have a strongly stabilizing effect. Published by the American Physical Society 2024