Stability and transition of attachment-line flow

Moving vehicles, such as submarines and airplanes, are surrounded by a thin boundary layer in which the relative uid velocity drops rapidly to zero close to the solid walls of the vehicle. The transition of such boundary layers from laminar into turbulent flow is an interesting phenomenon. Moreover, a strong international interest in problems of stability and transition of wall-bounded shear layers exists in connection with the design of many transport vehicles. In particular the stability and transition in attachment-line boundary-layer flow which forms e.g. near the leading edge of a wing is the central theme of this thesis. This theme has been investigated by solving appropriate mathematical models based on the Navier-Stokes equations numerically. For this purpose the attachment-line flow is considered as composed of a basic boundary-layer flow and perturbations superimposed on it. The models used consist of equations for the perturbations and the basic flow.