Instability and low-frequency unsteadiness in a shock-induced laminar separation bubble

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a shock-induced laminar separation bubble are carried out to investigate the flow instability and origin of any low-frequency unsteadiness. A laminar boundary layer interacting with an oblique shock wave at M = 1.5 is forced at the inlet with a pair of monochromatic oblique unstable modes, selected according to local linear stability theory (LST) performed within the separation bubble. Linear stability analysis is applied to cases with marginal. and large separation, and compared to DNS. While the parabolized stability equations approach accurately reproduces the growth of unstable modes, LST performs less well for strong interactions. When the modes predicted by LST are used to force the separated boundary layer, transition to deterministic turbulence occurs near the reattachment point via an oblique-mode breakdown. Despite the clean upstream condition, broadband low-frequency unsteadiness is found near the separation point with a peak at a Strouhal number of 0.04, based on the separation bubble length. The appearance of the low-frequency unsteadiness is found to he due to the breakdown of the deterministic turbulence, filling up the spectrum and leading to broadband disturbances that travel upstream in the subsonic region of the boundary layer, with a strong response near the separation point. The existence of the unsteadiness is supported by sensitivity studies on grid resolution and domain size that also identify the region of deterministic breakdown as the source of white noise disturbances. The present contribution confirms the presence of low-frequency response for laminar flows, similarly to that found in fully turbulent interactions.