Inviscid instability of the Batchelor vortex: Absolute-convective transition and spatial branches

The main objective of the study is to examine the spatio-temporal instability properties of the Batchelor q-vortex, as a function of swirl ratio q and external axial flow parameter a. The inviscid dispersion relation between complex axial wave number and frequency is determined by numerical integration of the Howard-Gupta ordinary differential equation. The absolute-convective nature of the instability is then ascertained by application of the Briggs-Bers zero-group-velocity criterion. A moderate amount of swirl is found to promote the onset of absolute instability. In the case of wakes, transition from convective to absolute instability always takes place via the helical mode of azimurhal wave number m = -1. For sufficiently large swirl, co-flowing wakes become absolutely unstable. In the case of jets, transition from absolute to convective instability occurs through various helical modes, the transitional azimuthal wave number m being negative but sensitive to increasing swirl. For sufficiently large swirl, weakly co-flowing jets become absolutely unstable. These results are in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with those obtained by Delbende el al.(1) through a direct numerical simulation of the linear response, Finally, the spatial (complex axial wave number, real frequency) instability characteristics are illustrated for the case of zero-external flow swirling jets. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-6631(99)04306-8].