Simultaneous measurement of velocity and pressure in a plane jet

Abstract

A new technique was developed for the simultaneous measurement of velocity and pressure in turbulent flows. To accomplish this objective, a new probe (hereafter called the combined probe) that consists of an X-type hot-wire probe and a newly devised pressure probe was developed. The pressure probe was miniaturized by the MEMS fabrication process and by using a 0.1-in. microphone as a pressure sensor for improving the spatial resolution. This pressure probe was placed between two hot-wire sensors of which the X-type hot-wire probe was composed. The pressure probe was given a hemispherical tip, like that of a pitot tube, because an earlier pressure probe with a conical tip suffered from a reduction in spatial resolution. The spatial arrangement of the pressure probe and the hot-wire probe for the combined probe was carefully determined, because there was a risk that the measurement accuracy of one probe will be influenced by disturbances caused by the other probe when the two probes were placed very close to each other. Therefore, the combined probe was arranged to engender no noticeable interference between the velocity data and the pressure data measured by their respective probes. As one application of this combined probe, simultaneous measurements of pressure and two components of instantaneous velocity were performed in a plane jet. The turbulent energy budget and the cross-correlation coefficient of velocity and pressure in the intermittent region of the plane jet were estimated. The results show that the mean streamwise velocity, velocity fluctuation, and pressure fluctuation profiles were consistent with those measured individually using the X-type hot-wire probe or pressure probe. Moreover, it was shown that the integral value of the diffusion term (which should theoretically be equal to zero) in the turbulent energy transport equation was closer to zero than previous reports (Bradbury in J Fluid Mech 23(Part 1):31–64, 1965). In addition, the time variation of the cross-correlation coefficient in the intermittent region supports the vortex structure model predicted in previous studies (Browne et al. in J Fluid Mech 149:355–373, 1984; Tanaka et al. JSME Int J Ser B 49(4):899–905, 2006; Sakai et al. J Fluid Sci Technol 2(3):611–622, 2007).