Two distinct mechanisms of tonal sound production in supersonic jet impingement

Abstract

The interaction of high-speed jets with a perpendicular surface produces not only broadband sound, but “impingement tones,” that can be more than 30 dB above the broadband noise. It is well recognized that these tones are the result of an aeroacoustic resonance, driven by a feedback loop between the jet nozzle and the plate. However, the exact mechanism by which the tones are produced remains a topic of some dispute; some researchers locate the source within the core of the impinging jet, others in the wall jet generated after impingement with the plate. In this work, we demonstrate that both camps have correctly identified sources; there are two distinct mechanisms, with two distinct locations. The relative strength of these sources depends on the geometry of the problem, but we show that they can actually coexist at a single condition. Decomposition of high-speed schlieren data directly visualizes the location of these sources as a function of jet operating condition.