Home – Home – Jornals – Thermophysics and Aeromechanics 2003 number 3

The experimental data of stability of a 3D supersonic boundary layer on a swept wing are presented. Development of artificial wave trains and their interaction with a steady disturbance have been studied. The experiments have been performed on a swept wing with a lenticular airfoil at swept angle of the leading edge 40^o and under zero angle of attack. The wave characteristics of travelling disturbances were determined. It was found that evolution of the controlled disturbances at an energy-carrier frequencies is similar to the development of the travelling waves for subsonic velocities. It results from the investigations that a nature of the stability in gradient-plane and spatial supersonic boundary layers is radically different. It is shown that a crossflow secondary instability is the main mechanism of a turbulence initiation in the supersonic boundary layer on the swept wing.