Experimental investigation of the effects of mean shear and scalar initial length scale on three-scalar mixing in turbulent coaxial jets

Abstract

In a previous study we investigated three-scalar mixing in a turbulent coaxial jet (Caiet al.J. Fluid Mech., vol. 685, 2011, pp. 495–531). In this flow a centre jet and a co-flow are separated by an annular flow; therefore, the resulting mixing process approximates that in a turbulent non-premixed flame. In the present study, we investigate the effects of the velocity and length scale ratios of the annular flow to the centre jet, which determine the relative mean shear rates between the streams and the degree of separation between the centre jet and the co-flow, respectively. Simultaneous planar laser-induced fluorescence and Rayleigh scattering are employed to obtain the mass fractions of the centre jet scalar (acetone-doped air) and the annular flow scalar (ethylene). The results show that varying the velocity ratio and the annulus width modifies the scalar fields through mean-flow advection, turbulent transport and small-scale mixing. While the evolution of the mean scalar profiles is dominated by the mean-flow advection, the shape of the joint probability density function (JPDF) was found to be largely determined by the turbulent transport and molecular diffusion. Increasing the velocity ratio results in stronger turbulent transport, making the initial scalar evolution faster. However, further downstream the evolution is delayed due to slower small-scale mixing. The JPDF for the higher velocity ratio cases is bimodal at some locations while it is always unimodal for the lower velocity ratio cases. Increasing the annulus width delays the progression of mixing, and makes the effects of the velocity ratio more pronounced. For all cases the diffusion velocity streamlines in the scalar space representing the effects of molecular diffusion generally converge quickly to a curved manifold, whose curvature is reduced as mixing progresses. The curvature of the manifold increases significantly with the velocity and length scale ratios. Predicting the observed mixing path along the manifold as well as its dependence on the velocity and length scale ratios presents a challenge for mixing models. The results in the present study have implications for understanding and modelling multiscalar mixing in turbulent reactive flows.