Studies are presented to elucidate the role of steady streamwise vortex structures, initiated upstream from weak Görtler vortices in the absence of explicit vortex generators, and their excited nonlinear wavy instabilities in the intensification of scalar mixing in a spatially developing mixing region. While steady streamwise vortex flow gives rise to significant mixing enhancement, the excited nonlinear wavy instabilities, which in turn modify the basic three-dimensional streamwise vortices, give rise to further mixing intensification which is quantitatively assessed by a mixedness parameter. Possibility of similarity between the dimensionless streamwise momentum and scalar transport problems leading to an extended Reynolds analogy is sought. This similarity is shown earlier to hold for the steady streamwise vortex flow in the absence of nonlinear wavy instabilities (Liu & Sabry 1991 Proc. R. Soc. A 432, 1-12). In this paper, the momentum conservation equations for the nonlinear wavy or secondary instabilities together with the advected fluctuation scalar problems are examined in detail. The presence of the streamwise fluctuation pressure gradient, which prevents the similarity, is estimated in terms of the fluctuation dynamical pressure and its relative importance to advective transport. It is found from scaling that the fluctuating streamwise pressure gradient, though not completely negligible, is sufficiently unimportant so as to render similarity between fluctuation streamwise velocity and fluctuation temperature and concentration a distinct possibility. The scalar fluctuations are then inferable from the fluctuation streamwise velocity and that the Reynolds stresses of the nonlinear fluctuations and the scalar fluxes are also similar. The nonlinear instabilitymodified mean streamwise momentum and the modified mean heat and mass transport problems are also similar, thus providing a complete 'Reynolds analogy', rendering possible the interpretation of the scalar mixedness for a gaseous medium for which the Prandtl and Schmidt numbers are near unity. It is found that the nonlinearity of the wavy instability, which induces scalar fluxes modifying the mean scalar transport, further intensifies scalar mixedness over a significant streamwise region which is well above that achieved by the steady, unmodified streamwise vortices alone for the numerical example corresponding to the most amplified wavy-sinuous mode.

The intent of the present contribution is to explain theoretically the experimentally measured surface heat transfer rates on a slightly concave surface with a thin boundary layer in an otherwise laminar flow. As the flow develops downstream, the measured heat transfer rate deviates from the local laminar value and eventually exceeds the local turbulent value in a non-trivial manner even in the absence of turbulence. While the theory for steady strong nonlinear development of streamwise vortices can bridge the heat transfer from laminar to the local turbulent value, further intensification is attributable to the transport effects of instability of the basic steady streamwise vortex system. The problem of heat transport by steady and fluctuating nonlinear secondary instability is formulated. An extended Reynolds analogy for Prandtl number unity, PrZ1, is developed, showing the similarity between streamwise velocity and the temperature. The role played by the fluctuation-induced heat flux is similar to momentum flux by the Reynolds shear stress. Inferences from the momentum problem indicate that the intensified heat flux developing well beyond the local turbulent value is attributed to the transport effects of the nonlinear secondary instability, which leads to the formation of 'coherent structures' of the flow. The basic underlying pinions of the non-linear hydrodynamic stability problem are the analyses of J. T. Stuart, which uncovered physical mechanisms of nonlinearities that are crucial to the present developing boundary layers supporting streamwise vortices and their efficient scalar transporting mechanisms.