Stability of Laminar Boundary Layers on Concave Walls in Presence of Magnetic Field

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the stability of the laminar boundary layer in an incompressible, electrically conducting fluid along a concave wall in the presence of a uniform external magnetic field perpendicular to the free-stream direction and parallel to the wall. The solid wall is assumed to be an electrical insulator or perfect conductor. The neutral stability curves in the relations of Gortler parameter G_θ to the nondimensional wave number σ_θ are presented for several values of the Hartmann number H_a. Attention is paid to the effect of variation of the streamline curvature over the concave wall in a direction normal to the wall on the condition of the neutral stability. Further consideration indicates that a change of the basic velocity profile in the boundary layer affects the stability curve in the same order of magnitude as the one in the case where no magnetic field is present.