Slip boundary effect on the critical Reynolds number of subcritical transition in channel flow

Abstract

In this letter, the effect of slip boundary on the origin of subcritical transition in two-dimensional channel flows is studied numerically and theoretically. It is shown that both the positive and the negative slip lengths will increase the critical Reynolds number of localized wave packet and hence postpone the transition. By applying a variable transformation and expanding the variables about a small slip length, it is illustrated that the slip boundary effect only exists in the second and higher order modulations of the no-slip solution, and hence explains the power law found in simulations, i.e. the relative increment of the critical Reynolds number due to the slip boundary is proportional to the square of the slip length.

Keywords

• Subcritical transition
• Slip length
• Localized wave packet
• Channel flow