Numerical study of the inlet conditions on a turbulent plane two dimensional wall jet

Abstract

The low Reynolds number turbulence model of Herrero et al. [Int J Heat Mass Trans 34 (1991) 711] is used in this work to study turbulent isothermal or non-isothermal plane two dimensional wall jets in stagnant surroundings. In this model, the empirical constant Cμ=0.09 appearing in the Kolmogorov–Prandtl relation was replaced by the function proposed by Ljuboja and Rodi [J Fluids Eng 102 (1980) 350] to take account of the damping effect of the wall on the lateral fluctuations. The system of equations governing the studied configuration is solved with a finite difference scheme using a staggered grid for numerical stability, not uniform in the two directions of the flow. In the present work, we are interested particularly in the influence of the inlet conditions at the nozzle exit on the jet characteristic parameters. The obtained results show that the inlet conditions affect the flow in the vicinity of the region of the nozzle. Starting from a certain distance, the established region is reached (auto-similar region), and the results become independent of the flow characteristics at the nozzle exit. The results are also compared to those suggested in the literature. The agreement with the experimental data is satisfactory for all studied flow configurations, which provides validation of our results.