This paper aims at a description of boundary-layer flow which is subjected to free-stream turbulence in the range from 1–6% and is based on both flow visualization results and extensive hot-wire measurements. Such flows develop streamwise elongated regions of high and low streamwise velocity which seem to lead to secondary instability and breakdown to turbulence. The initial growth of the streaky structures is found to be closely related to algebraic or transient growth theory. The data have been used to determine streamwise and spanwise scales of the streaky structures. Both the flow visualization and the hot-wire measurements show that close to the leading edge the spanwise scale is large as compared to the boundary-layer thickness, but further downstream the spanwise scale approaches the boundary-layer thickness. Wavenumber spectra in both the streamwise and the spanwise directions were calculated. A scaling for the streamwise structure of the disturbance was found, which allows us to collapse the spectra from different downstream positions. The scaling combines the facts that the streaky structures increase their streamwise length in the downstream direction which becomes proportional to the boundary-layer thickness and that the energy growth is algebraic, close to proportional to the downstream distance.

Free-stream turbulence (FST) is perhaps the most important source inducing by-pass transition in boundary layer flows. The present study describes the initial energy growth of streamwise-oriented disturbances in the boundary layer originating from the presence of FST with intensities between 1.4% and 6.7%, but the study is mainly focused on the modelling of the transition zone. For this study three passive and one active turbulence-generating grids were used. The active grid was used in order to vary the turbulence intensity ($Tu$) without changing the setup in the test section. It is shown that the initial disturbance energy in the boundary layer is proportional to $Tu^2$. The experiments also show that the energy grows in linear proportion to the Reynolds number based on the downstream distance. Furthermore the transitional Reynolds number is shown to be inversely proportional to $Tu^2$ for the whole range of $Tu$ studied. The intermittency in the transitional zone was determined and it was shown that the intermittency function has a universal shape if the downstream distance is scaled with the length of the transition zone. The Reynolds number based on this transition zone length was found to increase linearly with the transition Reynolds number; however it was also noted that this non-dimensional length has a minimum value. With these results we were able to formulate an expression for the spot production rate which has a better physical base than previous models.

The stability of a plane liquid sheet is studied experimentally and theoretically, with an emphasis on the effect of the surrounding gas. Co-blowing with a gas velocity of the same order of magnitude as the liquid velocity is studied, in order to quantify its effect on the stability of the sheet. Experimental results are obtained for a water sheet in air at Reynolds number Re l = 3000 and Weber number W e = 300, based on the half-thickness of the sheet at the inlet, water mean velocity at the inlet, the surface tension between water and air and water density and viscosity. The sheet is excited with different frequencies at the inlet and the growth of the waves in the streamwise direction is measured. The growth rate curves of the disturbances for all air flow velocities under study are found to be within 20 % of the values obtained from a local spatial stability analysis, where water and air viscosities are taken into account, while previous results from literature assuming inviscid air overpredict the most unstable wavelength with a factor 3 and the growth rate with a factor 2. The effect of the air flow on the stability of the sheet is scrutinized numerically and it is concluded that the predicted disturbance growth scales with (i) the absolute velocity difference between water and air (inviscid effect) and (ii) the square root of the shear from air on the water surface (viscous effect).