Research Article Temporal and Spatial Evolution Characteristics of Disturbance Wave in a Hypersonic Boundary Layer due to Single-Frequency Entropy Disturbance

Copyright © 2014 Zhenqing Wang et al.This is an open access article distributed under theCreative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. By using a high-order accurate finite difference scheme, direct numerical simulation of hypersonic flow over an 8 ∘ half-wedge-angle blunt wedge under freestream single-frequency entropy disturbance is conducted; the generation and the temporal and spatial nonlinear evolution of boundary layer disturbance waves are investigated. Results show that, under the freestream single-frequency entropy disturbance, the entropy state of boundary layer is changed sharply and the disturbance waves within a certain frequency range are induced in the boundary layer. Furthermore, the amplitudes of disturbance waves in the period phase are larger than that in the response phase and ablation phase and the frequency range in the boundary layer in the period phase is narrower than that in these two phases. In addition, the mode competition, dominant mode transformation, and disturbance energy transfer exist among different modes both in temporal and in spatial evolution. The mode competition changes the characteristics of nonlinear evolution of the unstable waves in the boundary layer. The development of the most unstable mode along streamwise relies more on the motivation of disturbance waves in the upstream than that of other modes on this motivation. 1