Interactions between upstream-propagating guided jet waves and shear-layer instability waves near the nozzle of subsonic and nearly ideally expanded supersonic free jets with laminar boundary layers

Abstract

The interactions between upstream-propagating guided jet waves and shear-layer instability waves near the nozzle of subsonic and nearly ideally expanded supersonic, isothermal free jets are investigated for jets at Mach numbers between 0.50 and 2 with fully laminar exit boundary layers of different thicknesses. The velocity spectra in the shear layers downstream of the nozzle exhibit strong narrow peaks for the first azimuthal modes, associated with growing Kelvin–Helmholtz instability waves. The frequencies of the predominant peaks are close, but not necessarily equal, to those of the most amplified instability waves predicted from the mean flow fields using linear stability analysis. They also fall in most cases within or very near the allowable frequency bands of the free-stream upstream-propagating guided jet waves obtained using a vortex-sheet model and jump from one band to another as the Mach number increases. At these frequencies, moreover, high levels organized into elongated stripes are found in the jet potential core and standing-wave patterns are visible at the edges of the shear layers in the power spectral densities of pressure and velocity fluctuations. Therefore, the free-stream upstream-propagating guided jet waves appear to interact with and excite the instability waves near the nozzle of the present jets, as in screeching and impinging jets. This explains the disparities of the frequencies and azimuthal modes of the instability waves dominating early on in the shear layers of initially laminar jets and their discontinuous changes and staging behaviours as the jet velocity varies.