The critical layer in quadratic flow boundary layers over acoustic linings

A straight cylindrical duct is considered containing an axial mean flow that is uniform everywhere except within a boundary layer near the wall, which need not be thin. Within this boundary layer the mean flow varies parabolically. The linearized Euler equations are Fourier transformed to give the Pridmore-Brown equation, for which the Greens function is constructed using Frobenius series. Inverting the spatial Fourier transform, the critical layer contribution is given as the non-modal contribution from integrating around the continuous spectrum branch cut. This contribution is found to be the dominant downstream contribution to the pressure perturbation in certain cases, particularly for thicker boundary layers. Moreover, the continuous spectrum branch cut is found to be involved in stabilizing what are otherwise convectively unstable modes by hiding them behind the branch cut, particularly for slower flows. Overall, the contribution from the critical layer is found to give a neutrally stable non-modal wave with a phase velocity equal to the mean flow velocity at the source when the source is located within the sheared-flow region, and to decay algebraically along the duct as O(x-5/2) for a source located with the uniform flow region. The Frobenius expansion, in addition to being numerically accurate close to the critical layer where other numerical methods loose accuracy, is also able to locate modal poles hidden behind the branch cut, which other methods are unable to find. Matlab code is provided to compute the Greens function.