Effects of noncircular collars on an axisymmetric jet

Abstract

An experimental investigation was carried out to study the effects of noncircular collars on an axisymmetric jet using surface flow visualization and hot-wire anemometry. Circular, square, and triangular collars with expansion ratios of 1.20, 1.35, and 1.54, respectively, with collar lengths of up to two jet diameters were used. Flow visualization shows that circular collars led to equidistant flow reattachments along the collar wall, while square and triangular collars resulted in the formation of a pair of counter-rotating vortex-pairs on each side of the collar wall. These vortex-pairs are caused by the presence of the three-dimensional velocity gradients between locations of minimum and maximum step-heights, which drove fluid from the collar wall centerlines towards the corners. Time-averaged velocity measurements show that the circular collar required the shortest collar length to achieve maximum centerline velocity decay, followed by square and triangular collars. Centerline turbulence intensity and velocity spectra results reveal that all three collars were able to suppress vortex-pairing events when they were sufficiently long with the triangular collar being the most effective. Furthermore, the triangular collar also produces the widest overall jet-spread, ahead of square and circular collars, respectively, even though it demonstrates significantly different jet-spreads along planes of minimum and maximum step-height. Self-excitation frequencies from all three collars could be distinguished into distinct frequency bands with changes in the collar lengths. Within each band, the circular collar results in the largest variation of excitation frequency over the square and triangular collars, respectively. Lastly, square and triangular collars require wider ranges of collar lengths for each of the frequency bands, as compared to the circular collar. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.