The effect of suction on the nonlinear stability of a three-dimensional compressible boundary layer

This study follows on from work by Bassom & Seddougui (1992, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 436, 405–15) on the effects of suction on the nonlinear stability of the three-dimensional incompressible boundary layer induced by a rotating disc. This flow has two types of stationary instability, one corresponds to the upper-branch inviscid mode and the other to the lower-branch viscous mode. This latter instability is characterized by an effective velocity profile which has a zero shear stress at the wall and, as in Bassom & Seddougui (1992), it is on this mode that interest is focused here. The effect of suction on the compressible flow, and its subsequent instability, is shown to be significant.