Turbulent Jet Mixing Enhancement and Control Using Self-Excited Nozzles

A new self-excited jet methodology was developed for the mixing enhancement of jet fluid with its surrounding, quiescent, stagnant, or coflowing fluid. The nozzles, of a square or rectangular cross section, featured two flexible side walls that could go into aerodynamically-induced vibration. The mixing of nozzle fluid was measured using planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) from acetone seeded into the nozzle fluid. Overall, the self-excited jet showed enhanced mixing with the ambient fluid; for example, at $390Hz$ excitation a mixing rate enhancement of 400% at $x∕D=4$ and 200% at $x∕D=20$ over the unexcited jet. The mixing rate was sensitive to the excitation frequency, increasing by 60% with the frequency changing from 200 to $390Hz$ (corresponding to a Strouhal number from 0.052 to 0.1). It was also observed that the mixing rate increased with the coflow velocity. To explain the observed mixing enhancement, the flow field was studied in detail using four-element hot wire probes. This led to the observation of two pairs of counter rotating large-scale streamwise vortices as the dominant structures in the excited flow. Shedding right from the nozzle exit, these inviscid vortices provided a rapid transport of the momentum and mass between the jet and the surrounding fluid at a length scale comparable to half-nozzle diameter. Moreover, the excited jet gained as much as six times the turbulent kinetic energy at the nozzle exit over the unexcited jet. Most of the turbulent kinetic energy is concentrated within five diameters from the nozzle exit, distributed across the entire jet width, explaining the increased mixing in the near field.