Behaviour of spiral vortices on a rotating cone in axial flow

SummaryThe purpose of the present paper is to investigate experimentally in detail the boundary layer transition process and the behaviour of spiral vortices appearing in the transition range of the boundary layer on a 30°-cone, rotating in axial flow. Counterrotating spiral vortices in the transition range are visualized with a white smoke method, and observed the time dependent behaviour of them using a drum camera and a light sheet illumination method with a stroboscope flash light. The light passes a slit in order to illuminate only a thin sheet in the flow. With this method, the time dependent growing up and breaking down process of these spiral vortices is greatly clarified. A hot wire anemometer is also used for measuring in the flow field quantitatively. The results show that the spiral vortices are generated in the thin region of the steep shear velocity gradients near the wall. As the vortices grow up in z-direction, they are strongly distorted by the mean velocity field there, and finally they are teared off.