The three-dimensional impulse response of a boundary layer to different types of

wall excitation
Prasannabalaji Sundaram, Tapan K. Sengupta, and Swagata Bhaumik

Citation: Physics of Fluids 30, 124103 (2018); doi: 10.1063/1.5063700

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5063700
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/phf/30/12
Published by the American Institute of Physics

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 PHYSICS OF FLUIDS 30, 124103 (2018)

The three-dimensional impulse response of a boundary layer

to different types of wall excitation
Prasannabalaji Sundaram,1,a) Tapan K. Sengupta,1,b) and Swagata Bhaumik2,c)
1 HighPerformance Computing Laboratory, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur,
Kanpur 208016, India
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Jammu, Jammu 181121, India

(Received 30 September 2018; accepted 4 December 2018; published online 28 December 2018)

Here we report a study of the physical mechanism behind the creation of perturbation of a boundary
layer by direct numerical simulation (DNS) of an incompressible Navier-Stokes equation (NSE) that
leads to eventual three-dimensional (3D) transition. By considering two different types of impulsive
wall-excitations which are similar to dip-slip and strike-slip events in the seismological terminology
for a zero pressure gradient (ZPG) boundary layer, we show that initial events and the evolution of
the resultant wave-packet bear a close resemblance with the physical mechanism for the creation of
tsunamis. This is due to the significant differences in the characteristics and dynamics of the wall-
bounded and oceanic boundary layer at deep-ocean. Here we particularly seek out the impulse response
of a ZPG boundary layer as demonstrated recently in the work of S. Bhaumik and T. K. Sengupta
[“Impulse response and spatio-temporal wave-packets: The common feature of rogue waves, tsunami,
and transition to turbulence,” Phys. Fluids 29, 124103 (2017)], by considering a specific boundary
motion similar to dip-slip events for the creation of tsunamis. The precursor of flow transition, noted
as the spatiotemporal wave front, has been shown to be very effectively created by the dip-slip type
of boundary motion, first reported in the work of Sengupta et al. [“Spatiotemporal growing wave-
fronts in spatially stable boundary layers,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 224504 (2006)], from both linear
and nonlinear analyses of NSE. In this study, receptivity of the boundary layer to these two types of
subduction motions is contrasted. This is performed for the first time using 3D DNS of NSE. It is
shown that the dip-slip event displays stronger receptivity than the strike-slip event. Published by AIP
Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5063700

I. INTRODUCTION A critical review on the application of linear stability theory for

wall-bounded shear flows is provided in Ref. 9, while a review
To understand the physical mechanism of transition in the
of the application of 3D instability theory for detecting cross-
framework of the impulse response of a boundary layer to wall
flow and secondary instability is given in Ref. 10. In transition
excitation is now feasible.1 Such an exercise has been under-
research, monochromatic harmonic boundary excitation for
taken to explain the experimental results in Ref. 2. In these
the vertical velocity has been used to cause flow transition.11–13
references, the authors have shown the generation of the spa-
In early experiments,14–16 the frequency response approach
tiotemporal wave front (STWF) as the forerunner of transition
was adopted to validate the instability theory which consid-
to turbulence, which has been created by a highly localized
ers a fixed frequency of excitation. This approach is different
wall-excitation caused by a pulsed delta function perturba-
from the experimental investigation performed in Ref. 2, where
tion. Apart from the pulsed wall excitation, impulsively started
the boundary perturbation is in the form of localized time-
time-harmonic monochromatic wall excitation can also create
pulsed excitation. There are other investigations17–19 where the
3D transition via the creation and growth of STWF.3 Thus,
reported simulations are not strictly performed as a frequency
irrespective of whether one is looking at the impulse response
response or an impulse response of a Blasius boundary layer.
or the frequency response of a boundary layer, both the types
The 3D impulse response of the zero pressure gradient (ZPG)
of excitations cause STWF, whose growth leads to an eventual
transition. How STWF is created in a boundary layer has also boundary layer has been reported recently in Ref. 1. Here, we
been shown in Ref. 4 by linear and nonlinear analysis of the obtained the equilibrium flow from the solution of NSE, incor-
Navier-Stokes equation (NSE). porating the growth of the boundary layer near the leading edge
In previous studies, authors have looked at problems and including nonlinear and nonparallel aspects of the impulse
of instability caused by particular types of input, defined response.
as the receptivity5–8 of the system to ambient disturbances. In Ref. 20, parametric characterization of laminar to tur-
bulent transition of cross-flow for flow past a swept-wing is
undertaken in the presence of free-stream turbulence (FST),
a) Electronic mail: prasannabalajis3@gmail.com
b) Electronic
steady vortices from the inflow, and distributed roughness ele-
mail: tksen@iitk.ac.in
c) Electronic addresses: swagatameister@gmail.com and swagata.bhaumik@ ments. Similarly in Ref. 21, scale interaction and modification
iitjammu.ac.in is studied for the ZPG turbulent boundary layer perturbed by

1070-6631/2018/30(12)/124103/8/$30.00 30, 124103-1 Published by AIP Publishing.

124103-2 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik
a wall-mounted discrete roughness element of circular cylin-
drical shape. These are passive excitation cases. By contrast,
here we provide a definitive impulse excitation from the wall
to track the disturbance evolution and study its amplification
to cause flow transition.
Although the present study is strictly for receptivity of
the zero pressure gradient boundary layer, the response of the
fluid dynamical system has some common features with the
tsunami and/or rogue waves1 in the oceanic boundary layer. It
is also well known that a tsunami is created as surface waves,
caused by earthquake on the faults of the ocean-bed or on the
continental shelf. At the same time, not all earthquakes cause
a tsunami. A strong tsunami is noted for earthquakes with
the order of magnitude 8.0 Mw. But, the 2018 Alaska earth-
quake with a magnitude of 7.9 Mw and 2010 Haiti earthquake
with a magnitude of 7.0 Mw surprisingly did not create a big
tsunami.22 Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a tsunami
is a very difficult undertaking, incorporating the complexities
of topologies of the ocean bed, nature of the earthquake caus-
ing it, and additionally coupling seismological motions with
ocean dynamics. Here, instead we try to focus on the unit pro-
cess of subduction motion on a ZPG boundary layer by a high
accuracy DNS. There exist significant differences in the char-
acteristics of the benthic (close to the sea-floor) or the Ekman
boundary layer appearing in deep-ocean and the ZPG bound-
ary layer considered here.23,24 An Ekman layer occurs along
bottom surfaces of the sea-bed, where frictional forces due to
the topology of the rough sea-bed is dominant, and at the ocean
surface, where the water is subjected to a wind stress.25,26 This
horizontal frictional stress is balanced by the Coriolis force
due to the earth’s rotation. These effects are not present in the
ZPG boundary layer considered here. Therefore, later stages of
disturbance evolution are different in these two types of bound-
ary layers because of differences in the mean shear-stress.
Despite these differences, here we show that impulse responses
for the ZPG boundary layer for dip-slip and strike-slip exci-
tations display strong resemblance with physical mecha-
nisms with the creations and evolution of tsunamis in initial
stages.
Subduction motions caused by the earthquake can result in
a vertical displacement (dip-slip event), a horizontal displace-
ment (Strike-slip event), or a combined oblique displacement,
as explained in Ref. 27 and shown in Fig. 1. The mecha-
nism of tsunami earthquakes has been described in Ref. 28,
where the earthquake has been classified based on an effective
moment, which is a seismic moment of a virtual step func-
tion dislocation, and the author suggested a threshold of this
moment at zero frequency to relate the potential of an earth-
quake to a tsunami. With this diagnostic tool, the author has
tried to explain the massive tsunami caused by very moderate
Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)
FIG. 1. Schematic of different types of faults. (a) Strike-
slip fault and (b) dip-slip fault.
earthquakes. This immediately points to the fact that the
earthquake magnitude is not the sole determinant of the
tsunami.
It must be emphasized that this point of view relates the
tsunami as one of the instability and receptivity problems, con-
trary to the implicit assumption in the literature,29 where the
tsunami is viewed as a forced response of a dynamical system
by large perturbation caused by earthquakes. The cumulative
evidence of tsunamis, caused by relatively weaker earthquakes,
while stronger earthquakes, like the one in Alaska in 2018, fail-
ing to create a tsunami, seems to support the former point of
view.28 For example, STWF was obtained by solving the Orr-
Sommerfeld equation (linear analysis in the spectral plane)
and 2D NSE (full analysis in the physical plane) for the ZPG
wall-bounded boundary layer, when these are solved as a spa-
tiotemporal problem, and not as by either spatial or temporal
instability routes.4,30 For the linear analysis, special care is
exercised for the Bromwich contour integral method used in
Ref. 31 for the spatiotemporal approach. It was noted that the
spatial analysis shows the response to be fully stable, while
spatiotemporal analysis reveals the presence of STWF4 for
the frequency response approach. In Ref. 1, a localized excita-
tion is applied at the boundary by the vertical velocity, which
is a pulsed excitation in time, similar to the dip-slip subduction
motion.
The dip-slip event creates a time harmonic vertical dis-
placement, which makes the system receptive for disturbance
growth, whereas in a strike-slip event, the vertical displace-
ment is indirect and small, with the shearing motion perturbing
the flow in the tangential direction. This is one of the goals of
the present research, to distinguish between the receptivity
of dip-slip and strike-slip boundary motions. High accuracy
numerical schemes with high performance computing have
opened possibilities to numerically investigate the evolution of
STWF events for the canonical zero pressure gradient problem,
as attempted here.
II. GOVERNING EQUATIONS, BOUNDARY
CONDITIONS, AND NUMERICAL METHODS
Full 3D NSE in velocity-vorticity (V ~
~ , Ω)-formulation 32 is
used here, as given by
∂Ω
~
~ = 0,
+∇×H (1)
∂t
~ = (Ω~ ×V ~ The streamwise and span-
~ + 1 ∇ × Ω).
where H ReL
wise velocities are obtained by solving the velocity Poisson
equation,
~ = −∇ × Ω,
∇2 V ~ (2)
124103-3 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)

while the vertical component of velocity is obtained by sat-
isfying the mass conservation. The equations are nondimen-
sionalized by the free stream velocity and a length scale (L)
obtained from the Reynolds number ReL , fixed as 105 for these
computations. In terms of δout∗ , the displacement thickness at
the outflow of the domain L ≈ 41.11δout ∗ . The schematic of
the computational domain is shown in Fig. 2 for the strike-slip
excitation case, and the schematic for the dip-slip excitation
problem is provided in Ref. 1. The computational domain is the
same as used in Ref. 1 which spans from x = −0.05 to x = 20 in
the streamwise direction, from y = 0 to y = 0.75 in the vertical
direction, and from z = −2 to z = 2 in the spanwise direction.
The periodic boundary condition is applied in the spanwise
direction.1,3 The plate is semi-infinite and truncated at the out-
flow for numerical consideration, as commonly used. In our
original spatiotemporal analysis of the Orr-Sommerfeld equa-
tion, we considered a parallel mean flow (i.e., an infinite flat
plate was considered),4 while for the solution of NSE for 2D
and 3D flows, a non-parallel equilibrium flow was used, with
both these approaches producing STWF.3,30 For both the cases
reported here, the flow condition for the inflow and far-field
boundaries is as indicated in Fig. 2. The Sommerfeld bound-
ary condition at the outflow convects disturbances out of the
computational domain, while keeping the domain finite. No
slip condition is applied at the y = 0 plane. The localized pure
impulsive strike-slip event is modeled by the delta function
uw0 , which is given as
uw0 (x, y = 0, z, t) = α1 δ(t − t0 )Am (x, z), (3)
where the time-shifted Dirac delta function is δ(t − t 0 ) =
sin( β 0 (t − t 0 ))/(t − t 0 ) with β 0 = 100 and t 0 = 0.01. The ampli-
tude control parameter α 1 is set to 0.002, and the excitation
for the strike-slip event is centered at x ex = 1.5 with its spatial
variation being given by the amplitude function as



 1 for xex − 0.045 ≤ x ≤ xex + 0.045 and 0 < z ≤ 0.045,

Am (x, z) =  −1 for xex − 0.045 ≤ x ≤ xex + 0.045 and − 0.045 ≤ z < 0 .




 0 otherwise


For the dip-slip boundary condition, the vertical velocity
vw0 is prescribed as
vw0 (x, y = 0, z, t) = α1 δ(t − t0 )An (x, z),
where the amplitude function for the dip-slip event is defined
as
 0.5(1 + cos(πr/r0 )) for0 ≤ r ≤ r0 ,

An (x, z) = 
 0 otherwise . the wall normal perturbation velocity and spanwise pertur-
 bation vorticity. In hierarchy, the streamwise component of
and r = (x − xex )2 + z2 . For the dip-slip condition, vw0 is
p
applied over a Gaussian circular patch of radius r 0 = 0.09,
while the strike-slip boundary condition is essentially slip-
page along the middle of the patch shown in Fig. 2, with the
two rectangular patches rubbing along the x-axis. Thus, the
energy input to the flow by the strike-slip boundary condi-
tion is going to be the same, when the linear dimension is
the same, irrespective of the strength of the earthquake. By
(4) contrast, the vertical motion induced by the dip-slip bound-
ary motion will be directly proportional to the strength of the
earthquake.
The fundamental disturbance quantities in the linear evo-
lution of 3D disturbance for definitive wall disturbance are
the disturbance velocity (u 0) follows the wall normal compo-
nent and then by the spanwise component of the disturbance
velocity (4 0) as noted by us. So, u 0 creates stronger recep-
tivity than that is created by the 4 0 perturbation. Here we
report only the strike-slip excitation at the wall caused by u 0
perturbation.

FIG. 2. Schematic of the computational domain.

124103-4 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik
In performing the simulations, we have used 1001 × 301
× 321 ≈ 96.72 × 106 points. The grid points are clustered near
the wall (y = 0) and where there is a large streamwise gradient
(x = 0) to accurately capture the initial growth of disturbances.
Minimum grid-spacing and maximum grid-spacing along
x- and y-directions are ∆x min = 9.106 × 10−3 (at the inflow),
∆x max = 2.16 × 10−2 (at the outflow), ∆ymin = 3.69 × 10−4
(at y = 0), and ∆ymax = 5.186 × 10−3 (at the far-field). Uniform
grid spacing ∆z = 1.25 × 10−2 is maintained in the z-direction.
The tangent hyperbolic function used in Ref. 32 is adopted
for the grid point distributions. Poisson equations are solved
by the bi-conjugate gradient stabilized algorithm.33 Vorticity
at the next time level is explicitly calculated by the optimized
three-stage Runge-Kutta scheme34 from the vorticity distribu-
tion at the current time level; for these simulations, the constant
time step (∆t) has been taken as 8 × 10−5 . A staggered arrange-
ment of variables is preferred due to the improved accuracy
of the results. The optimized staggered compact scheme32 is
used to discretize spatial derivatives.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The direct numerical simulation results for pulsed dip-slip
and strike-slip events are presented in this section. Response
FIG. 3. Evolution of the streamwise disturbance velocity for the response of the dip-slip event (left) and the strike-slip event (right) in the plane ȳ = y/δ =
∗
0.2837 at different time instants. Here, δ is the local displacement thickness of the boundary layer.
Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)
fields by the dip-slip and strike-slip boundary displacements
are obtained by exciting the equilibrium flow field. The equi-
librium flow is the same for both the cases which is obtained
by solving NSE [Eqs. (1)–(2)] without boundary excitation,
and the computation is performed till the unsteady terms go
below machine zero.
Here, our aim is to demonstrate the mechanism behind
the creation of tsunamis with the help of localized and impulse
excitation of the ZPG boundary layer corresponding to phys-
ically relevant seismological events in the sea floor. The
impulse response and the study of the evolution of the asso-
ciated wave-packet have also been attempted experimentally
in Ref. 2, in a bid to explain the transition to turbulence
where attempts were made to empirically fit results with TS
wave modes of the spatial theory. Other similar experiments
on pulse excitation were reported in the work of Breuer and
Haritonidis,35 Cohen et al.,36 Breuer et al.,37 and Medeiros
and Gaster.38,39 The excitations in these cases correspond
to v-velocity disturbance, i.e., dip-slip excitation, here. In
these studies, authors noted that the linear inviscid and vis-
cous theories are not adequate to account for all the observed
stages of the evolution of the wave-packet. The spatiotem-
poral evolution of the wave-packet due to a finite-time har-
monic excitation at the wall and with Gaussian distribution
∗
124103-5 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)

in space is explored computationally in the work of Yeo
et al.,17 to mimic experimental results reported in the work
of Breuer et al.37 with further analysis presented in Refs. 19
and 40. Excitation is imposed by prescribing v-velocity and
u-velocity at the wall, and the authors noted that u- and
v-initiated wave-packets evolve in a broadly similar fash-
ion and break down close to the same location. In contrast,
a series of intermittent wave-packets inside the boundary
layer can also be generated when it is perturbed by inci-
dent low-intensity free-stream turbulence (FST) as shown
in Kendall.41 However, the nature of such a series of inter-
mittent wave-packets (or wave-trains) induced due to FST
are quite different than that of an isolated wave-packet cre-
ated by impulsive excitation from the wall in a quiescent
environment.
In Fig. 3, the streamwise component of the disturbance
velocity ud (x, y, z, t) for (y = 0.001 89)-plane is compared at
the indicated time instants for the two cases. The disturbance
quantities are computed by subtracting equilibrium quantities
from the instantaneous values. The evolution for the dip-slip
excitation case is shown in frames (a1)-(a3), while the right-
hand side frames (b1)-(b3) are for the strike-slip excitation.
The excitations are localized in space and pulsed in time. For
both the cases, onset of excitation causes generation of a down-
stream propagating wave-packet in the form of an arrowhead,
when noted in the plan view, as shown in Ref. 1 for the dip-
slip excitation. The generated wave-packet and its subsequent
evolution are predominantly along the streamwise direction as
the group velocity components obtained from the dispersion
relation are in that direction. With the wave-packet traveling
downstream, the disturbance amplitude increases, with higher
wavenumbers appearing gradually. This is evident from frame
(a3) for ud corresponding to the dip-slip excitation at t = 20.
Induction of such high wavenumber components is indicative
of formation of turbulent spots. In Ref. 1, this is traced up to
later times, when one observes the disturbance to cause tran-
sition from the laminar to the turbulent state. The evolution of
these wave-packets is usually nascent during the approach of
the tsunami at the coast, and one sees fewer numbers of crests
and troughs.
A comparison of the evolution of ud for dip-slip [frames
(a1)-(a3)] and strike-slip [frames (b1)-(b3)] events shows that
the amplification and dispersion of the wave-packet for the
dip-slip excitation are stronger than those of the latter. The
strong and spectrally rich wave-packet due to the dip-slip exci-
tation builds up the disturbance field as it progresses toward
the outflow. The maximum amplitude of disturbance for the
dip-slip excitation is more than four times the maximum
amplitude for the strike-slip excitation, at t = 20. There-
fore, the impulsive strike-slip event is always milder than

FIG. 4. Two-dimensional spatial Fourier transform of ud data at the indicated times, comparing dip-slip (left) and strike-slip (right) events, with the physical
∗ ∗
plane data shown in Fig. 3. Results are shown for a height of ȳ = y/δ = 0.2837. Here, δ is the local displacement thickness of the boundary layer.
124103-6 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)

FIG. 5. Evolution of maximum streamwise disturbance velocity for the response of the dip-slip event and the strike-slip event at different heights.

that is due to the dip-slip boundary excitation. The 2D Fourier
transform of the data in Fig. 3 is shown in Fig. 4, with the dip-
slip data shown in the left frames. As expected, the highest
amplitude of the transforms is near the origin in the stream-
wise and spanwise wavenumbers, (k x , k z )-plane. At early times
(t = 10), apart from the spanwise mode, one also observes
an oblique mode for the dip-slip case. In comparison, the
strike-slip case amplitudes are smaller by more than a factor
of two. For the next frames at t = 15, both the cases dis-
play larger bandwidth of wavenumbers. However, the dip-slip

FIG. 6. Cross section of the wave front in different x− planes at different heights for t = 20. Multimedia view: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5063700.1
124103-7 Sundaram, Sengupta, and Bhaumik
case displays richer spectrum, as compared to the strike-slip
case. With a further increase in time (t = 20), the dip-slip case
displays larger multi-modal transform with the spanwise com-
ponent enriching, while the streamwise bandwidth remains the
same, with the motion remaining symmetric in the spanwise
direction. For the strike-slip case, the amplitude reduced more
than three times, while an asymmetry develops for the resul-
tant wavenumber vector, showing a tendency to move in the
negative z-direction.
To further quantify evolution of disturbances, we track
maximum ud , as a function of time, for the indicated y−planes
in Fig. 5. For the dip-slip event, initially the amplitude decays
due to spanwise dispersion. This stage is followed by linear
growth of disturbances and subsequent strengthening of non-
linear interactions, which moderates the initial linear growth
rate. Similar decay of amplitude at early times is also noted
for the strike-slip event. However, such a drop at early time
is localized to heights close to the wall. One also notes that
for the strike-slip event, when the nonlinear terms become
dominant at t ≈ 12, the amplitude starts to fall and settle in a
lower value; over the height, fall in the maximum amplitude
increases. However, in the case of dip-slip event, fall in the
maximum amplitude is less when compared to the strike-slip
event. Overall, disturbance amplitudes are higher for the dip-
slip event after their levels are saturated by nonlinearity, as
noted in Figs. 3 and 5.
In Fig. 6 (Multimedia view), we compare ud as a func-
tion of z at four different x-stations, for the three indicated
heights. The disturbance shown in Fig. 6 (Multimedia view)
corresponds to t = 20. One notes the symmetry in the structure
of the wave-packet for the dip-slip event from frames (a1)-
(a4). The wave-packet corresponding to the strike-slip event
displays symmetry at the rear part and is lost at the leading
part of the packet due to inherent asymmetry of the excita-
tion. From frames (b2)-(b4), the maximum amplitude for this
case is noted for the backward movement of the plate surface.
For the dip-slip event, one observes a steep increase in the
amplitude toward the front end of the wave-packet. This is
not noted for the wave-packet corresponding to the strike-slip
event. This corroborates the earlier observations that the evo-
lution and amplification of the wave-packet are much benign
for the strike-slip excitation than for the dip-slip excitation.
The presented results indicate that the receptivity mechanism
of the shear layer to dip-slip and strike-slip excitations bears
good resemblance with the creation of tsunamis due to sub-
duction in the sea-bed. This is also supported by some of the
recorded tsunami incidents, as noted in Alaska in 2018 and
Haiti in 2010. For these two cases, the strike-slip disloca-
tion of the sea-floor did not create a big tsunami as it was
anticipated.
IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The physical mechanism behind hydrodynamic transition
is studied to throw some light on the creation of tsunamis with
respect to the type of subduction motion at the boundary. The
examined canonical model is geometrically simple, yet the
physical details obtained by the high accuracy solution of full
3D NSE show the efficacy of one type of subduction motion
Phys. Fluids 30, 124103 (2018)
over the other. The formulation and methods used here are
the same as that have been used in Ref. 1 to study the tran-
sition to turbulence by an excitation that is localized in space
and pulsed in time. The authors identified that imposition of
vortical disturbances inside the boundary layer creates the spa-
tiotemporal wave front or STWF, which has been identified
as the building block for geophysical waves and hydrody-
namic waves which cause the transition to turbulence. Here,
two types of subduction motions are considered: the wall nor-
mal displacement (dip-slip motion) and the other related to the
horizontal motion (strike-slip motion). The impulse response
of the boundary layer by the dip-slip boundary motion cre-
ates STWF, which resembles a tsunami-like perturbation field.
The dip-slip subduction motion caused by earthquakes on the
ocean bed is noted for the violent tsunami event. This is not
the case for strike-slip subduction motion, as noted for the
2018 Alaska earthquake (strike-slip) with a very high strength
of 7.9 Mw, yet it created a very weak tsunami. This was the
primary motivation in undertaking a detailed study to distin-
guish between dip-slip and strike-slip boundary motions. The
results presented in Fig. 3 compare the perspective plots of the
dip-slip and strike-slip response fields, and one clearly notices
that the disturbance field for the strike-slip boundary motion
creates a maximum amplitude, which is one-fifth of the ampli-
tude caused by the dip-slip boundary motion. The evolution
clearly shows that the amplitude for the dip-slip motion contin-
ues to grow in all the frames, while for the strike-slip motion,
the amplitude starts decaying gradually after t = 12. This is
also shown by plotting the maximum streamwise disturbance
velocity component in Fig. 5 for both the cases. Such a qualita-
tive and quantitative difference for the response field due to the
change in boundary perturbation to create a tsunami has not
been reported before using NSE. The present study suggests
that the potential of an earthquake to cause a tsunami should
be categorized by the strength along with the type of subduc-
tion motion. Considering the fact that such a natural calamity
is a consequence of flow instability, the implicit perception
that this is a consequence of forced excitation shows that the
strength is a weaker factor, as compared to the qualitative dif-
ference in the subduction motion. This is equally true for the
transition to turbulence of a wall-bounded shear layer, as well
as for causation of the tsunami.
1 S. Bhaumik and T. K. Sengupta, “Impulse response and spatio-temporal
wave-packets: The common feature of rogue waves, tsunami, and transition
to turbulence,” Phys. Fluids 29, 124103 (2017).
2 M. Gaster and I. Grant, “An experimental investigation of the formation and
development of a wave packet in the laminar bondary layer,” Proc. R. Soc.
London, Ser. A 347(1649), 253–264 (1975).
3 S. Bhaumik and T. K. Sengupta, “Precursor of transition to turbulence:
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