Jet impingement onto a cavity

Abstract

Jet impingement onto surface finds wide application in industry. In laser processing an assisting gas jet is introduced either to shield the surface from oxidation reactions or initiating exothermic reaction to increase energy in the region irradiated by a laser beam. When an impinging gas jet is used for a shielding purpose, the gas jet enhances the convective cooling of the cavity surface. The convective cooling of the laser formed cavity surface can be simulated through jet impingement onto a cavity with elevated wall temperatures. In the present study, gas impingement onto a slot is considered. The wall temperature of the cavity is kept at elevated temperature similar to the melting temperature of the substrate material. A control volume approach is used to simulate the flow and temperature fields. The Reynolds Stress Turbulence model (RSTM) is employed to account for the turbulence. To examine the effect of cavity depth on the heat transfer characteristics, the depth is varied while keeping the cavity width constant. It is found that impinging jet penetrates into a cavity, which in turn, results in a stagnation region extending into the cavity. An impinging gas jet has considerable effect on the Nusselt number along the side walls of the cavity while the Nusselt number monotonically changes with varying cavity depth.