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Resolvent analysis is used to study the low-frequency behaviour of the laminar oblique shock wave / boundary layer interaction (SWBLI). It is shown that the computed optimal gain, which can be seen as a transfer function of the system, follows a first-order low-pass filter equation, recovering the results of Touber and Sandham (JFM, 2011). This behaviour is understood as proceeding from the excitation of a single stable, steady global mode whose damping rate sets the time scale of the filter. Different Mach and Reynolds numbers are studied, covering different recirculation lengths $L$. This damping rate is found to scale as $1/L$, leading to a constant Strouhal number $St_L$ as observed in the literature. It is associated with a breathing motion of the recirculation bubble. This analysis furthermore supports the idea that the low-frequency dynamics of the SWBLI is a forced dynamics, in which background perturbations continuously excite the flow. The investigation is then carried out for 3D perturbations for which two regimes are identified. At low wave numbers of the order of $L$, a modal mechanism similar to that of 2D perturbations is found and exhibits larger values of the optimal gain. At larger wave numbers of the order of the boundary layer thickness, the growth of streaks, which results from a non-modal mechanism, is detected. No interaction with the recirculation region is observed. Based on these results, the potential prevalence of 3D effects in the low-frequency dynamics of the SWBLI is discussed., Comment: to be published in JFM

Linear and nonlinear energy optimizations in a tilted domain are used to unveil the main mechanisms allowing the creation of a turbulent band in a channel flow. Linear optimization predicts an optimal growth for streamwse and spanwise wavenumbers $k_x = 1.2$, $k_z = - 1.75$, corresponding to the peak values of the premultiplied energy spectra of direct numerical simulations. At target time, the linear optimal perturbation is composed by oblique streaks, which, for a sufficiently large initial energy, induce turbulence in the whole domain, due to the lack of spatial localization. When localization is achieved by adding nonlinear effects to the optimization, or by artificially confining the linear optimal to a localized region in the spanwise direction, a large-scale flow is created, which leads to the generation of a localised turbulent band. These results suggest that inducing transition towards turbulent bands in a tilted domain, two main elements are needed: a linear energy growth mechanism such as the lift-up for generating large-amplitude flow structures which produce inflection points; large-scale vortices ensuring spatial localisation. Remarkably, these two elements alone are able to generate an isolated turbulent band also in a large, non-tilted domain.

In this work, nonlinear variational optimization is used for obtaining minimal seeds for the formation of turbulent bands in channel flow. Using nonlinear optimization together with energy bisection, we have found that the minimal energy threshold for obtaining spatially-patterned turbulence scales with $Re^{-8.5}$ for $Re>1000$. The minimal seed is constituted by a localized spot-like structure surrounded by a low-amplitude large-scale quadrupolar structure filling the whole domain. This minimal-energy perturbation of the laminar flow has dominant wavenumbers equal to $0.15$ and $4$ in the streamwise and spanwise directions, respectively, and is characterized by a more marked spatial localization when the Reynolds number increases. At $Re \lesssim 1200$, the minimal seed evolves in time creating an isolated oblique band. Whereas, for $Re\gtrsim 1200$, an almost spanwise-symmetric evolution is observed, giving rise to two distinct bands. A similar evolution is found also at low $Re$ for non-minimal optimal perturbations. This highlights two different mechanisms of formation of turbulent bands in channel flow, depending on the Reynolds number and initial energy of the perturbation. The selection of one of these two mechanisms appears to be affected by the probability of decay of the newly-created stripe, which increases with time, but decreases with the Reynolds number.

Wakes of upswept afterbodies are often characterized by a counter-rotating streamwise vortex pair. The unsteady dynamics of these vortices are examined with a spatio-temporally resolved Large-Eddy Simulation dataset on a representative configuration consisting of a cylinder with an upswept basal surface. Emphasis is placed on understanding the meandering motion of the vortices in the pair, including vortex core displacement, spectral content, stability mechanisms and overall rank-behavior. The first two energy-ranked modes obtained through Proper Orthogonal Decomposition(POD) of the time-resolved vorticity field reveals a pair of vortex dipoles aligned relatively perpendicularly to each other. The dynamics is successfully mapped to a matched Batchelor vortex pair whose spatial and temporal stability analyses indicate similar dipole structures associated with an |m|=1 elliptic mode pair. This short-wave elliptic instability dominates the meandering motion, with strain due to axial velocity playing a key role in breakdown. The low frequency of the unstable mode (Strouhal number StD =0.3 based on cylinder diameter) is consistent with spectral analysis of meandering in the LES. The wake is examined for its rank behavior; the number of modes required to reproduce the flow to given degree of accuracy diminishes rapidly outside of the immediate vicinity of the base. Beyond two diameters downstream, only two leading POD modes are required to reconstruct the dominant meandering motion and spatial structure in the LES data with < 15% performance loss, while ten modes nearly completely recover the flow field. This low-rank behavior may hold promise in constructing a reduced-order model for control purposes., Comment: 39 pages, 10 figures