Abstract
Subcritical transition to turbulence in spatially developing boundary layer flows can be triggered efficiently by finite amplitude perturbations. In this Rapid Communication, we employ adjoint-based optimization to identify optimal initial perturbations in the Blasius boundary layer, culminating in the computation of the subcritical transition critical energy threshold and the associated fully localized critical optimum in a spatially extended configuration, the so called minimal seed. By dynamically rescaling the variables with the local boundary layer thickness, we show that the identified edge trajectory approaches the same attracting phase space region as previously reported edge trajectories, and reaches the region more efficiently.
- Received 14 November 2019
- Accepted 13 May 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.062401
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.
Published by the American Physical Society