Rapid mixing and spreading of supersonic jets are two important characteristics in supersonic ejectors, noise reduction in jets and fuel mixing in supersonic combustion. It helps in changing the acoustic and thermal signature in supersonic exhaust. The supersonic nozzles in most cases result in compressible mixing layers. The subsonic nozzles form incompressible mixing layers but at high Mach numbers even they form compressible mixing layers. Compressible mixing layers have been found to have much lower mixing and spreading rates than incompressible mixing layer Birch & Eggers (1972). In order to enhance the spreading and mixing of mixing layers from supersonic nozzles various active and passive methods have been deviced. Active methods include fluid injection, fluid lobes and plasma actuation. Passive methods are mostly based on modifying the nozzle geometry such that the fluid expansion is ideal or the shock cell is broken. Many nozzles with exotic shapes have been developed to obtain mixing enhancements in supersonic jets Gutmark et al. (1995). To achieve enhanced mixing an innovative nozzle named as the Elliptic Sharp Tipped Shallow (ESTS) lobed nozzle has been developed in L.H.S.R., I.I.Sc., India Rao & Jagadeesh (2014). This nozzle has a unique geometry involving elliptical lobes and sharp tips. These lobes are generated using a simple manufacturing process from the throat to the exit. This lobed and sharp tipped structure introduces stream wise vortices and azimuthal velocity components which must help in enhanced mixing and spreading. The ESTS lobed nozzle has shown mixing enhancement with 4 lobes. The spreading rate was found to be double of the reference conical nozzle. This thesis is motivated by the need to investigate the flow physics involved in the ESTS lobed nozzle. The effect of varying the number of lobes and the design Mach number of the nozzle on the mixing and spreading characteristics will be further discussed. Visualisation studies have been performed. The schlieren and planar LASER Mie scattering techniques have been used to probe the flow. Instantaneous images were taken at axial planes with the reference conical and ESTS nozzles with three, four, five and six lobes. The nozzles are for design Mach number 2.0 and 2.5. The stagnation chamber pressure was maintained to obtain over expanded, ideally expanded and under expanded flows. LASER scattering was obtained by seeding the flow with water to observe the behaviour of the primary flow. The condensation of moisture due to the cold primary flow mixing with the ambient air was exploited to scatter laser and observe the flow structures in the mixing layer. A comparison of the images of the reference conical nozzle and the ESTS lobed nozzles shows changes in the mixing layers due to the ESTS lobed nozzles. The image of the reference conical nozzle shows a distinct potential core and mixing layers all along the length of the image. For the ESTS lobed nozzles this distinction becomes unclear shortly after the nozzle exit. Thus mixing of the primary flow and ambient air is seen to be enhanced in the case of all the ESTS lobed nozzles. The flow in the case of the ESTS lobed nozzles if found to be highly non axis symmetric. The starting process of the nozzles has been visualised using time resolved schlieren. Image processing was performed on the nozzles to quantify the spread rate. The shock structure of the nozzles has been studied and found to be modified due to the lobed geometry. The level of convolution of the mixing layer due to the lobed structure has been studied using fractal analysis. The four lobed nozzle was found to have the highest spread rate and th most convoluted shear layer. Hence this nozzle was further studied using background oriented schlieren and particle image velocimetry to quantify the flow field. These experimental results have been compared with CFD simulations using the commercial software CFX5. The computations and experiments don’t match accurately but the trends match. This allows for simulations to be used as a good first approximation. The acoustic properties of a jet are dependent on the flow structure behaviour. The ESTS lobes have been found to change the flow structure. Hence the ESTS lobed nozzle was predicted to change the acoustic signature of the flow. The acoustic measurements of the flow were carried out at National Aerospace Laboratories, Bengaluru. The screech of the overexpanded flow was seen to be eliminated and the overall sound levels were found to have been reduced in all cases. Thus the lobed nozzle was found to have acoustic benefits over the reference conical nozzle. Thus the ESTS lobed nozzle has been studied and compared with the conical nozzle using several methods. The changes due to the lobed structure have been studied quantitatively. Future studies would focus on the change in thrust due to the lobed structure. Also new geometries have been proposed inspired by the current design but with possible thrust benefits or manufacturing benefits.

The efficient and enhanced mixing of heat and incoming reactants is achieved in modern gas turbine systems by employing swirling flows. This is realized by a low velocity region (internal recirculation zone -IRZ) zone resulting from vortex breakdown phenomenon. Besides, IRZ acts as effective flame holder/stabilization mode. Double concentric swirling jet is employed in plethora of industrial applications such as heat exchange, spray drying and combustion. As such, understanding essential features of vortex breakdown induced IRZ and its acoustic response in swirling flow/flame is important in thermo-acoustic instability studies. The key results of the present experimental investigation are discussed in four parts. In the first part, primary transition (sub-critical states) from a pre-vortex breakdown (Pre-VB) flow reversal to a fully-developed central toroidal recirculation zone (CTRZ) in a non-reacting, double-concentric swirling jet configuration is discussed when the swirl number is varied in the range 0.592 S 0.801. This transition proceeds with the formation of two intermediate, critical flow regimes. First, a partially-penetrated vortex breakdown bubble (VBB) is formed that indicates the first occurrence of an enclosed structure resulting in an opposed flow stagnation region. Second, a metastable transition structure is formed that marks the collapse of inner mixing vortices. In this study, the time-averaged topological changes in the coherent recirculation structures are discussed based on the non-dimensional modified Rossby number (Rom) which appears to describe the spreading of the zone of swirl influence in different flow regimes. The second part describes a secondary transition from an open-bubble type axisymmetric vortex breakdown (sub-critical states) to partially-open bubble mode (super-critical states) through an intermediate, critical regime of conical sheet formation for flow modes Rom ≤ 1 is discussed when the swirl number (S) is increased beyond 0.801. In the third part, amplitude dependent acoustic response of above mentioned sub and supercritical flow states is discussed. It was observed that the global acoustic response of the sub-critical VB states was fundamentally different from their corresponding super-critical modes. In particular, with a stepwise increase in excitation amplitude till a critical value, the sub-critical VB topology moved downstream and radially outward. Beyond a critical magnitude, the VB bubble transited back upstream and finally underwent radial shrinkage at the threshold excitation amplitude. On the other hand, the topology of the super-critical VB state continuously moved downstream and radially outwards and finally widened/fanned-out at threshold amplitude. In the final part, transition in time-averaged flame global flame structure is reported as a function of geometric swirl number. In particular, with a stepwise increase in swirl intensity, primary transition is depicted as a transformation from zero-swirl straight jet flame to lifted flame with blue base and finally to swirling seated flame. Further, a secondary transition is reported which consists of transformation from swirling seated flame to swirling flame with a conical tailpiece and finally to highly-swirled near blowout ultra-lean flame. For this purpose, CH* chemiluminescence imaging and 2D PIV in meridional planes were employed. Three baseline fuel flow rates through the central fuel injection pipe were considered. For each of the fuel flow cases (Ref), six different co-airflow rate settings (Rea) were employed. The geometric swirl number (SG) was increased in steps from zero till blowout for a particular fuel and co-airflow setting. A regime map (SG vs Rea) depicting different regions of flame stabilization were then drawn for each fuel flow case. The secondary transformation is explained on the basis of physical significance of Rom.

The present research is an experimental investigation of the atomization of a superheated pressurized liquid jet that is exposed to the ambient pressure due to a sudden depressurization. This phenomena is called flashing and occurs in several industrial environments.<p><p>Liquid flashing phenomena holds an interest in many areas of science and engineering. Typical examples one can mention: a) the accidental release of flammable and toxic pressure-liquefied gases in chemical and nuclear industry; the failure of a vessel or pipe in the form of a small hole results in the formation of a two-phase jet containing a mixture of liquid droplets and vapor, b) atomisation improvement in the fuel injector technology, c) flashing mechanism occurrence in expansion devices of refrigerator cycles etc. The interest in flashing events is especially true in the safety field where any unexpected event is undesirable. In case of an accident, flammable or toxic gas clouds are anticipated in close regions of the release because of the sudden phase change .Due to the non-equilibrium nature of the flow in these near field regions, conducting accurate data measurements for droplet size and velocity is a challenging task resulting in scarce data in the very close area.<p><p>This research has been carried out at the von Karman Institute (VKI) within the 5th framework of European Commission to fulfill the goal of understanding of source processes in flashing liquids in accidental releases. The program is carried out under name of FLIE (Flashing Liquids in Industrial Environments)(Contract no: EVG1-CT-2000-00025). The specific issues that are presented in this thesis study are the following:a) a comprehensive state of art of the jet break up patterns, spray characteristics and studies related to flashing phenomena; b)flashing jet breakup patterns and accurate characterization of the atomized jet such as droplet diameter size, velocity and temperature evolution through carefully designed laboratory-scale experiments; c) the influence of the initial storage conditions on the final atomized jet; d) a physical model on the droplet transformation and rapid evaporation in aerosol jets.<p><p>In order to characterize the atomization of the superheated liquid jet, laser-based optical techniques like Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Phase Doppler Anemometry (PDA) are used to obtain information for particle diameter and velocity evolution at various axial and radial distances. Moreover, a high-speed video photography presents the possibility to understand the break-up pattern changes of the simulating liquid namely R-134A jet in function of driving pressure, superheat and discharge nozzle characteristics. Global temperature measurements with an intrusive technique such as thermocouples, non-intrusive measurements with Infrared Thermography are performed. Cases for different initial pressures, temperatures, orifice diameters and length-to-diameter ratios are studied. The break-up patterns, the evolution of the mean droplet size, velocity, RMS, turbulence<p>intensity and temperature along the radial and axial directions are presented in function of initial parameters. Highly populated drop size and velocity count distributions are provided. Among the initial storage conditions, superheat effect is found to be very important in providing small droplets. A 1-D analytical rapid evaporation model is developed in order to explain the strong temperature decrease during the measurements. A sensitivity analysis of this model is provided.<p> / Doctorat en sciences appliquées / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / We numerically investigate the underlying physics of two peculiar phenomena, which are axis-switching and saddle-back velocity profile, in both laminar and turbulent rectangular jets using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Previously developed computation protocols based on single-relaxation-time (SRT) and multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann equations are utilized to perform direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large eddy simulation (LES) respectively. In the first study, we systematically study the axis-switching behavior in low aspect-ratio (AR), defined as the ratio of width over height, laminar rectangular jets with <italic>AR=1</italic> (square jet), 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3. Focuses are on various flow properties on transverse planes downstream to investigate the correlation between the streamwise velocity and secondary flow. Three distinct regions of jet development are identified in all the five jets. The <italic>45&deg</italic> and <italic>90&deg</italic> axis-switching occur in characteristic decay (CD) region consecutively at the early and late stage. The half-width contour (HWC) reveals that <italic>45&deg</italic> axis-switching is mainly contributed by the corner effect, whereas the aspect-ratio (elliptic) feature affects the shape of the jet when <italic>45&deg</italic> axis-switching occurs. The close examinations of flow pattern and vorticity contour, as well as the correlation between streamwise velocity and vorticity, indicate that <italic>90&deg</italic> axis-switching results from boundary effect. Specific flow patterns for <italic>45&deg</italic> and <italic>90&deg</italic> axis-switching reveal the mechanism of the two types of axis-switching respectively. In the second study we develop an algorithm to generate a turbulent velocity field for the boundary condition at jet inlet. The turbulent velocity field satisfies incompressible continuity equation with prescribed energy spectrum in wave space. Application study of the turbulent velocity profile is on two turbulent jets with <italic>Re=25900</italic>. In the jets with <italic>AR=1.5</italic>, axis-switching phenomenon driven by the turbulent inlet velocity is more profound and in better agreement with experimental examination over the laminar counterpart. Characteristic jet development driven by both laminar and turbulent inlet velocity profile in square jet (<italic>AR=1</italic>) is also examined. Overall agreement of selected jet features is good, while quantitative match for the turbulence intensity profiles is yet to be obtained in future study. In the third study, we analyze the saddle-back velocity profile phenomenon in turbulent rectangular jets with AR ranging from 2 to 6 driven by the developed turbulent inlet velocity profiles with different turbulence intensity (<italic>I</italic>). Saddle-back velocity profile is observed in all jets. It has been noted that the saddle-back's peak velocities are resulted from the local minimum mixing intensity. Peak-center difference <italic>&Delta_pc</italic> and profound saddle-back (PSB) range are defined to quantify the saddle-back level and the effects of AR and <italic>I</italic> on saddle-back profile. It is found that saddle-back is more profound with larger AR or slimmer rectangular jets, while its relation with <italic>I</italic> is to be further determined.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A constant-volume combustor is used to investigate the ignition initiated by a traversing jet of reactive hot gas, in support of combustion engine applications that include novel wave-rotor constant-volume combustion gas turbines and pre-chamber IC engines. The hot-jet ignition constant-volume combustor rig at the Combustion and Propulsion Research Laboratory at the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) was used for this study. Lean premixed combustible mixture in a rectangular cuboid constant-volume combustor is ignited by a hot-jet traversing at different fixed speeds. The hot jet is issued via a converging nozzle from a cylindrical pre-chamber where partially combusted products of combustion are produced by spark- igniting a rich ethylene-air mixture. The main constant-volume combustor (CVC) chamber uses methane-air, hydrogen-methane-air and ethylene-air mixtures in the lean equivalence ratio range of 0.8 to 0.4. Ignition delay times and ignitability of these combustible mixtures as affected by jet traverse speed, equivalence ratio, and fuel type are investigated in this study.