On streak breakdown in bypass transition

Recent theoretical, numerical, and experimental investigations performed at the Department of Mechanics, KTH Stockholm, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, are reviewed, and new material is presented to clarify the role of the boundary-layer streaks and their instability with respect to turbulent breakdown in bypass transition in a boundary layer subject to free-stream turbulence. The importance of the streak secondary-instability process for the generation of turbulent spots is clearly shown. The secondary instability manifests itself as a growing wave packet located on the low-speed streak, increasing in amplitude as it is dispersing in the streamwise direction. In particular, qualitative and quantitative data pertaining to temporal sinuous secondary instability of a steady streak, impulse responses both on a parallel and a spatially developing streak, a model problem of bypass transition, and full simulations and experiments of bypass transition itself are ...