Linear Stability of the Boundary Layer of Relaxing Gas on a Plate

The development of inviscid and viscous two-dimensional subsonic disturbances in the supersonic flat-plate boundary layer of a vibrationally excited gas is investigated on the basis of the linear stability theory. The system of two-temperature gas dynamics which includes the Landau-Teller relaxation equation is used as the initial model. Undisturbed flow is described by the self-similar boundary-layer solution for a perfect gas. It is shown that in the inviscid approximation excitation decreases the maximum growth rate of the most unstable second mode by 10-12% as compared with an ideal gas. The neutral stability curves are calculated for the first and second most unstable modes at the Mach numbers M = 2.2, 4.5, and 4.8. For both modes the critical Reynolds numbers at maximum excitation are greater by 12-13% than the corresponding values for the perfect gas.