A Numerical Study of the Instability of the Laminar Ekman Boundary Layer

Abstract

This study is concerned with the instability of laminar Ekman flow which is characteristic of boundary-layer flows in rotating systems of many kinds. By numerical integration of the equations of motion we have obtained critical values of a Reynolds number for this flow, growth rates of the unstable perturbations and equilibrium finite-amplitude solutions. The results are in good agreement with experimental data, and the numerical solutions extend the results beyond what could be obtained readily in laboratory experiments.