Turbulent Structures in the Flow Field of Plane Jet Impinging on a Circular Cylinder

Abstract

An experimental study was performed for the developing structural characteristics of a plane jet at Re = 3,000. The velocity field measurements were made using particle image velocimetry (PIV) in a water jet facility. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method was applied to the twodimensional PIV data to reveal large-scale vortical structures in the jet flow. The symmetrical counter-rotating vortices that have been discussed in previous jet studies were confirmed in the initial region. It was found that these vortices were generated as a result of the first vortex merging at the subharmonic sideband frequency, ⁄2, where was the initial jet shear instability frequency and was the jet column frequency. Moving downstream, their characteristic frequency evolved into 2 ⁄ 3 ⁄4 through nonlinear interaction. In the interaction region, symmetrical vortices were gradually displaced with each other in the streamwise direction and antisymmetrical vortices were eventually formed. The negative correlation between streamwise velocity fluctuations at two points on opposite sides of the jet centreline was caused by the passage of vortical structures. An experimental study was also conducted for the structural characteristics of an impinging jet on a circular cylinder for two cases D/h = 0.5 and 1 where D was the diameter of the cylinder and h was the nozzle height. The mean and turbulent flow fields of the D/h = 0.5 case appeared to be the replica of the wake behind the circular cylinder in cross flow. In contrast, those of the D/h = 1 case showed significantly different features. The alternate vortex shedding and the symmetrical secondary vortices were commonly found in the results of both cases, but the former was pronounced for D/h = 0.5 and the latter was dominant for D/h = 1. The characteristic frequency of the free jet vortices was found to be ; namely, the subharmonic of the initial jet shear layer instability was modulated at . This modulating frequency arose from the upstream propagation of perturbation at the cylinder surface by the impinging free jet vortices. As the free jet vortices approached the cylinder, thin vortex layers were generated due to the adverse pressure gradient. The separation of these vortex layers led to shedding of the symmetrical secondary vortices. The presence of symmetrical secondary vortices instead of alternate vortex shedding suggests a strong influence of the symmetrically arranged free jet vortices. For D/h = 0.5, the free jet vortices and the symmetrical secondary vortices interacted convectively as they moved downstream parallel to the centreline of the flow field. As a result, the alternate vortex shedding was formed and the corresponding frequency spectra exhibited multiple peaks at discrete frequencies. For D/h = 1, the symmetrical secondary vortices were convected downstream without a direct interaction with the free jet vortices due to the deflection of the free jet vortices away from the cylinder. The alternate vortex shedding was also observed but its characteristic frequency was much lower than that of the D/h = 0.5 case and was the same as the difference between the characteristic frequencies of the free jet vortices and the secondary vortices. According to the previous heat transfer studies for impinging jet on a circular cylinder, the averaged Nusselt number was found to increase with decreasing curvature ratio D/h. Therefore, it is possible to postulate that alternate vortex shedding is responsible for higher heat transfer and is thus a more efficient flow structure than induced symmetrical secondary vortices only.