Spectral Entropy in a Boundary-Layer Flow

Abstract: This article presents a comparison of the entropy production in a laminar and transitional boundary layer flow with the spectral entropy produced in a region of instability induced by an imposed periodic disturbance. The objective of the study is exploratory in nature by computing a boundary-layer environment with well-established computer techniques and comparing the predictions of the maximum rate of entropy production in the wall shear layer with the deterministic prediction of the spectral entropy growth within an inceptive instability in the inner region of the upstream boundary-layer flow. The deterministic values of the spectral entropy within the instability are brought into agreement with the computed rate of entropy production inversely along the shear flow with the assumption that the instability is of a span-wise vortex form and that the spectral entropy components are transported into the wall shear layer by vortex down sweep and are processed into thermodynamic entropy in the boundary-layer wall region.