Stability of Nonparallel Developing Flow in a Pipe to Nonaxisymmetric Disturbances

Linear spatial stability of the nonparallel developing flow in a rigid circular pipe has been studied at several axial locations for nonaxisymmetric disturbances. The main flow velocity profile is obtained by Hornbeck’s finite-difference method assuming uniform flow at entry to the pipe. The method of multiple scales is used to account for all the nonparallel effects. It is found that the nonparallel developing flow is most unstable to nonaxisymmetric disturbances with azimuthal wave number n equal to unity. Axisymmetric disturbances are, however, more unstable than nonaxisymmetric disturbances with n ≥ 2 except in the near-entry region. The results show that the parallel flow theory overpredicts the critical Reynolds number by as much as 136.5 percent in the near entry region for the n = 1 disturbance. The present results compare well with the available experimental data.