Underexpanded Jet Research Articles

The Mechanism for the Quasi-Back-Attack Phenomenon of Gas Jets Submerged in Water

Over-expanded and under-expanded gas jets submerged in water have been studied through numerical simulation and experiments. Comparisons between numerical and experimental results are made to validate the conclusion that the ‘quasi-back-attack’ phenomenon in high-unexpanded conditions is caused by the obstruction of the shock waves acted on back-attacked gas. As a consequence, back-attacked gas cannot reach the wall of the motor. A detailed analysis of the results reveals the underlying mechanism of the structure of the gas jet under different operating conditions. Meanwhile, the characterization of the motor’s thrust indicates that the oscillation amplitude of thrust drops sharply after the occurrence of quasi-back-attack phenomenon, which is beneficial to the stability of the motor.

Nozzle external geometry as a boundary condition for the azimuthal mode selection in an impinging underexpanded jet

The role of the external boundary conditions of the nozzle surface on the azimuthal mode selection of impinging supersonic jets is demonstrated for the first time. Jets emanating from thin- and infinite-lipped nozzles at a nozzle pressure ratio of $3.4$ and plate spacing of $5.0D$, where $D$ is the nozzle exit diameter, are investigated using high resolution particle image velocimetry (PIV) and acoustic measurements. Proper orthogonal decomposition is applied to the PIV fields and a difference in dominant instability mode is found. To investigate possible explanations for the change in instability mode, additional nozzle external boundary conditions are investigated, including the addition of acoustic dampening foam. A difference in acoustic feedback path is suggested to be the cause for the change in dominant azimuthal modes between the flows. This is due to the thin-lip case containing a feedback path that is concluded to be closed exclusively by a reflection from the nozzle base surface, rather than directly to the nozzle lip. The ability of the flow to form a feedback path that maximises the impingement tone gain is discussed with consideration of the numerous acoustic feedback paths possible for the given nozzle external boundary conditions.

A comparative study on the use of calibrated and rainbow schlieren techniques in axisymmetric supersonic jets

Detailed experimental comparisons had been conducted between calibrated and rainbow schlieren on perfectly- and under-expanded axisymmetric supersonic jets through a modified Z-type schlieren system. The techniques were implemented by using a weak lens in the field-of-view to provide calibration information for the extraction of quantitative density gradients from the experimental schlieren images. Sixth-order polynomial curve fits were obtained for both calibrated and rainbow schlieren respectively. The effects of light inhomogeneity caused by the mirrors and system diaphragm aperture had been evaluated for the colour images and results indicate that averaging the background hue is an acceptable approach for minimizing light variations with less than 2% experimental error. Density gradients as calculated via Abel transform have also been evaluated to validate the two different set-ups. Additionally, experimental results have been compared to validated numerical results and they show that calibrated schlieren is able to predict density gradients within 2% of the numerical results. This is significantly more superior to rainbow schlieren, where errors in the estimated density gradients are closer to 20%. It is shown here that rainbow schlieren results are more adversely impacted by the system diaphragm aperture, especially for vertical light cut-off configuration. This is partly due to the loss of sensitivity of the schlieren system, as well as potential light diffusion caused by the filter.

Effects of Nozzle Pressure Ratio and Nozzle-to-Plate Distance to Flowfield Characteristics of an Under-Expanded Jet Impinging on a Flat Surface

The current work experimentally investigates the flowfield characteristics of an under-expanded turbulent jet impinging on a solid surface for various nozzle-to-plate distances 2.46 D j , 1.64 D j , and 0.82 D j ( D j is the jet hydraulic diameter), and nozzle pressure ratios (NPRs) ranging from 2 to 2.77 . Planar particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements were performed in the central plane of the test nozzle and near the impingement surface. From the obtained PIV velocity vector fields, flow characteristics of under-expanded impinging jets, such as mean velocity, root-mean-square fluctuating velocity, and Reynolds stress profiles, were computed. Comparisons of statistical profiles obtained from PIV velocity measurements were performed to study the effects of the impingement surface, nozzle-to-plate distances, and NPRs to the flow patterns. Finally, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis was applied to the velocity snapshots to reveal the statistically dominant flow structures in the impinging jet regions.

A Study on Broad Band Noise Emitted from Underexpanded Radial Jet

This study focuses on a noise emitted from a radial underexpanded jet. The underexpanded jet is well known as one of supersonic jets and it is formed when the pressure ratio across a convergent nozzle is more than the critical value. The underexpanded jet has been used in many fields, such a propulsion of rocket, laser cutting and a glass tempering process. Such jet is exhausted from a circular nozzle. The expansion wave, the compression wave and the shock wave are periodically formed in the jet, which leads to quasi-periodical shock-cell structure. On the other hand, an underexpanded jet radially issues from intake and exhaust valves of an internal combustion engine and a pressure control valve. The radial underexpanded jet does not have the quasi- periodical shock-cell structure such as the jet from the circular nozzle, its cell length decreasing along jet axis. In this study, an underexpanded jet radially discharged from a circular slit nozzle, which consists of two circular tubes, is experimentally examined for different nozzle pressure ratios. The jet structure is visualized using Schlieren method and a noise emitted from the jet is measured. Typically, the shock associated broadband noise is analyzed and a relation between the jet structure and the radiation noise frequency is discussed. As a result, it is found that the broadband noise lies on lower frequency than a screech tone and that the 1st cell length plays an important role in broadband noise radiation.

A Numerical Study on Jet Structure and Noise Emission of Underexpanded Radial Jet

In this study, an underexpanded radial jet issuing from a small gap between two circular tubes facing each other is investigated numerically. Radial jet is formed, for example, downstream of high-pressure valves in piping system and of poppet valves in engines, and causes many industrial problems such as the noise generation and the fatigue failure of structure. In this study, the jet issuing from a small gap between two tubes with same diameter is numerically simulated. The flow field is assumed to be axisymmetric against the central axis of tubes and to be symmetric against the intermediate plane between the exits of two tubes. The axisymmetric Euler equations are solved using symmetric TVD (Total Variation Diminishing) scheme. The effects of nozzle pressure ratio and of diameter of circular tubes on the structure and the behavior of jets are examined. Typical cell structure of underexpanded jet appears in radial jet and the length of cell becomes smaller in downstream region because the jet spreads radially like a disc. The length and width of first cell are larger with higher nozzle pressure ratio. Many vortices are generated one after another near the jet boundary and move downstream, which cause the oscillation of jet. Outside of jet, two types of density waves are observed. One of them propagates toward the nozzle (toward the upstream region) and the other propagates in opposite direction. Focusing on the pressure change caused by the former waves, which is related to well-known screech, dominant frequency obtained by FFT analysis was found to become lower with higher pressure ratio and smaller diameter of tube.

Shock structures of underexpanded non-circular slot jets

Flow visualization studies using shadowgraph technique are carried out to investigate the shock evolution from non-circular slot jets at various under-expansion levels. The non-circular topologies considered are triangular, square and elliptic, and the circular jet is taken as the baseline case for the study. These jets are underexpanded in the pressure ratio (R) range of 2–6 corresponding to a fully expanded jet Mach number up to 1.85. Results indicate that the shock cell structures of non-circular jets strongly depend upon the initial shape of the topology. The shock structures of triangular jet have additional secondary oblique shocks that are distinct from those of other non-circular jets. Mach disk is almost absent in a shock cell structure of triangular jet, which is unlike the case of other jets used in the study. The study suggests that square jet undergoes faster diffusion process compared with the triangular jet. Axis-switching phenomenon is predicted for the elliptical jet at a distance of 3–7 equivalent diameters.

Study of axisymmetric underexpanded sonic jets with Mach disks (Density field measurements by rainbow schlieren deflectometry)

Study of axisymmetric underexpanded sonic jets with Mach disks (Density field measurements by rainbow schlieren deflectometry)

Study on 2D RANS simulations of underexpanded sonic jets

Study on 2D RANS simulations of underexpanded sonic jets

Density Field Measurements of Underexpanded Sonic Jets from Rectangular Converging Nozzles

Density Field Measurements of Underexpanded Sonic Jets from Rectangular Converging Nozzles

Self-Induced Flow Oscillation Caused by Interaction between Underexpanded Supersonic Jet Formed by Rectangular Nozzle and Obstacle

Self-Induced Flow Oscillation Caused by Interaction between Underexpanded Supersonic Jet Formed by Rectangular Nozzle and Obstacle

Characteristics of sound waves emitted from underexpanded jet impinging on flat plate

Characteristics of sound waves emitted from underexpanded jet impinging on flat plate

Влияние вдува малоразмерных струй различных конфигураций на структуру и акустическое излучение сверхзвуковой струи

The work is devoted to experimental study of the structure and acoustic radiation of a supersonic underexpanded jet Ma = 1, Npr = 5 with the presence of vortexgenerators in the form of small-sized jets injections. Ten different configurations were tested, in which following the gas-dynamic and geometrical parameters of the microjets were changed one by one: microjets pressure, the injection distance from the main nozzle section, azimuthal, tangential, and axial angles of micronozzles inclination. The flow visualization, azimuthal Pitot pressure profiles and characteristics of jet noise in the far field were obtained. It has been revealed that the injection of microjets in general leads to an increase in the jet long-range and a decrease in its mixing. The advantageous parameters of the microjets injection for reducing the jet acoustic emission are the injection point vicinity to the main nozzle section, micronozzles inclination to main jet axis and the small tangential angle of micronozzles. The micronozzles quantity effect is non-linearly in relation to the structure and the jet noise. The average pressure measuring distribution near artificial longitudinal vortices in a jet stream cannot predict the characteristics of its mixing and acoustic radiation.

On the influence of uncertainty in computational simulations of a high-speed jet flow from an aircraft exhaust

A classic approach to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is to perform simulations with a fixed set of variables in order to account for parameters and boundary conditions. However, experiments and real-life performance are subject to variability in their conditions. In recent years, the interest of performing simulations under uncertainty is increasing, but this is not yet a common rule, and simulations with lack of information are still taking place. This procedure could be missing details such as whether sources of uncertainty affect dramatic parts in the simulation of the flow. One of the reasons of avoiding to quantify uncertainties is that they usually require to run an unaffordable number of CFD simulations to develop the study.To face this problem, Non-Intrusive Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) has been applied to 3D Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations of an under-expanded jet from an aircraft exhaust with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulent model, in order to assess the impact of inaccuracies and quality in the simulation. To save a large number of computations, sparse grids are used to compute the integrals and built surrogates for UQ. Results show that some regions of the jet plume can be more sensitive than others to variance in both physical and turbulence model parameters. The Spalart-Allmaras turbulent model is demonstrated to have an accurate performance with respect to other turbulent models in RANS, LES and experimental data, and the contribution of a large variance in its parameter is analysed. This investigation explicitly outlines, exhibits and proves the details of the relationship between diverse sources of input uncertainty, the sensitivity of different quantities of interest to said uncertainties and the spatial distribution arising due to their propagation in the simulation of the high-speed jet flow. This analysis represents first numerical study that provides evidence for this heuristic observation.

Equivalent Shock-Associated Noise Source Reconstruction of Screeching Underexpanded Unheated Round Jets

This paper investigates the broadband shock-associated noise (BBSAN) radiated from supersonic jets at the root source level. The sources are modeled according to an acoustic analogy. The acoustic-analogy model is informed by high-spatial-resolution two-dimensional two-component particle image velocimetry (PIV) data and solutions to the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations for the reconstruction of the equivalent BBSAN sources. The measurements are of screeching underexpanded jets issuing from a purely converging nozzle at ideally expanded Mach numbers of 1.45 and 1.59. The jet conditions are simulated using a RANS solver with a shear-stress-transport turbulence model. The RANS scales are modeled using formulations of a two-timescale model based on the turbulence dissipation and large-eddy-convection time. The large-eddy-convection-based scale is recommended as a replacement for the standard turbulence-dissipation scale in low-order BBSAN models. The equivalent BBSAN sources are reconstructed from the PIV measurements and RANS solutions at the peak Strouhal number. The equivalent BBSAN sources extracted from the PIV and RANS data are shown to have a favorable agreement.

Thermometry in gas flows using two-line fluorescence imaging and structured illumination

We present a feasibility demonstration of the instantaneous determination of temperature fields in gaseous flows based on planar laser-induced fluorescence by integrating structured illumination with the two-line thermometry technique using nitric oxide as a tracer. This approach allows the capture of two fluorescence images originating from the simultaneous probe of two rotational states of nitric oxide (X2Π, v” = 0) using one detector and their subsequent deconvolution using spatial frequency analysis. Average experimental temperature measurements in an underexpanded jet demonstrate the viability of this approach, suggesting that the laser spatial modulation frequency and laser orientation with respect to the flow field under study impose the achievable spatial resolution limits.

Correlation Analysis of High-Resolution Particle Image Velocimetry Data of Screeching Jets

The acoustic analogy provides a general framework for predicting broadband jet noise. The accuracy of the noise predictions is strongly dependent on the second- and fourth-order integral time and length scales of the turbulence quantities in the jet. Two low-order models for the second- and fourth-order integral length scales are examined. The low-order models are defined by locally isotropic scales estimated from two-dimensional particle image velocimetry measurements. These measurements are of screeching underexpanded unheated round jets issuing from a purely converging nozzle at conditions that correspond to ideally expanded Mach numbers of 1.45 and 1.59. The jets are dominated by the helical (C) instability screech mode, which is associated with large-scale coherent periodic fluctuations. These fluctuations are filtered using a proper orthogonal decomposition method to assess low-order models that approximate the length scales associated with the broadband noise mechanisms. The length scale model parameters are shown to be insensitive for the two Mach numbers considered. The root-mean-square error associated with the low-order models indicates that either is sufficient for approximating the integral length scales required to model equivalent sources of broadband jet noise.

Numerical investigation on flashing jet behaviors of single-hole GDI injector

In this paper, n-hexane flashing jets discharged from a single-hole gasoline direct injector (GDI) were studied numerically with the adoption of diffuse Eulerian framework and the homogeneous relaxation model (HRM). The fuel temperature ranged from 30 to 130 °C, and the ambient pressure varied from 20 to 101 kPa. The results showed that considerable vaporization started at the counter bore and a liquid core existed near the nozzle exit. Due to drastic vaporization, the pressure within the liquid core increased so the two-phase flow became under-expanded. Violent expansion then occurred and a low-pressure region was formed, which is believed as the origin of the spray collapse under flashing conditions for multi-hole GDI injectors. At high superheat levels, shock wave structures similar to those in highly under-expanded gaseous jets were identified. However, the transonic position located at some distances from the nozzle rather than at the throttle. Besides, vapor fraction played the dominant role in the onset of expansion, while the expansion was ended by the pressure difference between the two sides of the Mach disk.

Experimental and Numerical Study of Heat Transfer of High-Enthalpy Underexpanded Air Jets with Cylindrical Models

Experimental and Numerical Study of Heat Transfer of High-Enthalpy Underexpanded Air Jets with Cylindrical Models

Investigation of a highly underexpanded jet with real gas effects confined in a channel: flow field measurements

This article describes experiments to investigate the fluid-to-wall interaction downstream of a highly underexpanded jet, with a pressure ratio of 120, confined in a channel. Heat transfer induced by Joule-Thomson cooling, which is a real gas effect in such a configuration, has critical implications on the safety of pressurised gas components. This phenomenon is challenging to model numerically due to the requirement to implement a real gas equation of state, the large range of (subsonic and supersonic) velocities, the high turbulence levels and the near-wall behaviour. An experimental setup with simple geometry and boundary conditions, and with a wide optical access was designed and implemented. It consisted of a high-pressure gas reservoir at controlled temperature and pressure, discharging argon through a nozzle into a square channel. This facility was designed to allow for a steady-state expansion from over 120 bar to atmospheric pressure for over 1 min. The choice of fluid, pressure and temperature regulation system, and the implementation of a high pressure particle seeding system are discussed. The gas dynamics of this flow was then investigated by two separate optical techniques. Schlieren measurements were used to locate the position of the Mach disk, and planar particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the turbulent velocity field in the regions of lower velocity downstream. Mie scattering images also indicated the presence of a condensed argon phase in the supersonic region as expected from previous studies on nucleation. The observed location of the sharp interface at the Mach disk was found to be in excellent agreement with the Crist correlation. Rapid statistics were derived from the PIV measurements at 3 kHz. The recirculation zone was found to extend about 4 channel heights downstream, and in the region between 2 and 3 channel heights downstream, a continuous deceleration on the centerline velocity was observed in line with the narrowing of the recirculation zone. The first and second velocity moments as well as Reynold stresses were quantified, including pdf distributions. In addition, a sensitivity and repeatability analysis, an evaluation of the PIV random uncertainty, as well as an estimation of errors induced by particle inertia were performed to allow for a full quantitative comparison with numerical simulations.