Stability of jets and wakes confined by compliant walls

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Abstract
A spatiotemporal stability analysis is conducted on a flow representing both jets and wakes, subject to confinement by identical compliant walls. The walls are placed at equal distances from the fluid center line for a range of wall and flow parameters. By following the position of special saddle points (pinch points) of the dispersion relation in the complex wave-number plane, the absolute and convective instability stability properties of the flow are determined for various system parameters. The compliant walls are shown to modify the shear-induced instabilities, which exist in the rigid wall case, as well as introduce new additional instabilities originating from the presence of the wall itself. It is observed that under certain system parameters, these wall-induced modes become the dominant instability present in the system and can induce an absolute instability into flows which are only convectively unstable when confined by rigid walls, as well as extending the region of absolute instability to large confinement parameters. Results are presented for both a piecewise linear velocity profile and a smooth velocity profile, with the results of the two studies in qualitative agreement.
Funding Information
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/V520111/1, EP/W006545/1)

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