Abstract
The viscous dissipative instability of two flows with continuous spectrum of neutrally-stable perturbations in the absence of dissipation is investigated. Ranges of wave numbers in which viscosity leads to flow destabilization are determined for a shear discontinuity in a smoothly-stratified fluid. A shear flow with a velocity in the transition layer that depends linearly on the coordinate has a continuum of neutral modes even in the case of an unstratified fluid. When viscosity is present in one of the layers with constant velocity, one of the branches of the spectrum becomes unstable. When the viscosity is the same above and below the shear layer, dissipation only leads to the damping of the perturbations.
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Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 14–19, November–December, 1986.
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Kolykhalov, P.I. Dissipative instability of fluid flows with piecewise linear velocity profiles. Fluid Dyn 21, 854–860 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02628018
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02628018