A swirling jet has been generated in water by passing the fluid through a rotating honeycomb and discharging it into a water tank. Experiments were conducted at 3000 < Re < 7000 and 1.15 < S < 1.5. In addition, axial periodic perturbations were applied in order to excite the shear layer by an axisymmetric mode m=0. The amplitudes of the forcing were in the range 4% < A < 44%. Quantitative measurements were carried out by using STEREO-PIV. Experiments show that at higher Reynolds numbers the vortex breakdown does not occur abruptly as often mentioned in the literature. Instead, all mean quantities which characterize the vortex breakdown show a continuous change with increasing swirl. The high turbulence level may explain the differences to former studies. Velocity contours of the cross-sectional view indicate azimuthal modes that decrease from m=4 close to the nozzle to m=2 near the vortex breakdown. Phase-locked data show that the location of vortex breakdown alternates with the forcing frequency without a significant mean displacement, whereas for a certain combination of frequency and amplitude it sheds downstream while losing its intensity

OBERLEITHNER, Kilian

PASCHEREIT, Oliver

WYGNANSKI, Israel

English

I-Revues

18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
Vortex Breakdown in a Swirling Jet with Axial Forcing
Kilian Oberleithner1, Oliver Paschereit1 & Israel Wygnanski2
1Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Technical Acoustics, Technical University Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
2The Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. 85721, USA
kilian.oberleithner@gmx.de
Abstract :
A swirling jet has been generated in water by passing the fluid through a rotating honeycomb and dis-
charging it into a water tank. Experiments were conducted at 3000 ≤ ReD ≤ 7000 and 1.15 ≤ S ≤ 1.5.
In addition, axial periodic perturbations were applied in order to excite the shear layer by an axisym-
metric mode m = 0. The amplitudes of the forcing were in the range 4% ≤ A ≤ 44%. Quantitative
measurements were carried out by using STEREO-PIV. Experiments show that at higher Reynolds num-
bers the vortex breakdown does not occur abruptly as often mentioned in the literature. Instead, all
mean quantities which characterize the vortex breakdown show a continuous change with increasing
swirl. The high turbulence level may explain the differences to former studies. Velocity contours of the
cross-sectional view indicate azimuthal modes that decrease from m = 4 close to the nozzle to m = 2
near the vortex breakdown. Phase-locked data show that the location of vortex breakdown alternates
with the forcing frequency without a significant mean displacement, whereas for a certain combination of
frequency and amplitude it sheds downstream while losing its intensity.
Key-words :
Vortex Breakdown ; Periodic Perturbations ; STEREO-PIV
1 Introduction
The vortex breakdown is a very unique feature which may occur in swirling flows. It
occurs when the ratio of axial to azimuthal velocity exceeds a certain threshold. Both
quantities have to be in the same order of magnitude. Billant et al. (1998), who did flow
visualizations in water at low Reynolds numbers describe the breakdown as an abrupt
widening of the vortex core into a new stable coherent structure. It can be observed in
geophysical flows such as tornadoes or in man-made flows such as tip vortices produced
over delta wings. In the latter case vortex breakdown usually occurs at very high angle
of attack and it is believed to lead to a sudden drop in lift. In most premixed combustors
the vortex breakdown is used to stabilize the flame in order to decrease noise generated
by resonance effects. The onset of vortex breakdown is dominated by complex three-
dimensional mechanisms, that are not fully understood. In addition, the occurrence of
pressure gradients in axial and radial direction and their interaction with the flow field
yield to fundamental scientific questions. Thus, numerous studies of vortex breakdown
have been conducted in the last three decades.
According to experiments carried out at high Reynolds numbers by Panda et al. (1993),
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18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
the introduction of swirl complicates the flow tremendously. The overall growth of all
modes of instability is small relative to the non swirling jet, in particular the generation
of subharmonics through vortex pairing is completely suppressed. Furthermore, Panda
et al. (1993) found it difficult to excite any natural modes and observed that the growth
of large coherent structures is very low.
Khalali et al. (2006) succeeded in moving the location of vortex breakdown downstream
by sinusoidal pulsing in axial direction. The experiments, conducted at low Reynolds
numbers show, that the maximum displacement can be achieved by forcing the flow at
its natural shedding frequency. The displacement of the vortex breakdown could first be
determined by flow visualizations at amplitudes of 5% and a saturation of displacement
was reached at 40% of the mean mass flow.
Another important feature of swirling jets is the occurrence of azimuthal modes that are
believed to contribute to the onset of vortex breakdown. Only a few experimental studies
about the governing instabilities have been done. Loiseleux et al. (2003) investigated
the modes in a swirling laminar jet for swirl numbers in a pre-breakdown range. For
swirl numbers 1 ≤ S ≤ 1.3 they observed that axisymmetric and helical modes exist.
For low swirl numbers various azimuthal modes occur. With increasing swirl the m = 1
mode gets more dominant then the m = 0 mode. Furthermore, for higher Reynolds
numbers a trend to higher modes could be observed.
2 Scientific Contents
The goal of the conducted experiment was to investigate the flow field of a turbulent
swirling jet at higher Reynolds numbers undergoing vortex breakdown, by means of
quantitative measurement. Natural and axially forced swirling jets at swirl numbers
below and beyond the onset of vortex breakdown were under consideration. STEREO-
PIV was used to determine the development of integral values as the axial flux of axial
and tangential momentum and the static pressure due to centrifugal forces. By phase-
locking the data-acquisition with the forcing frequency, the evolution of the coherent
structures in the shear layer could be investigated and the dynamical response of the
coherent structures for various forcing frequencies and amplitudes could be investigated.
To get access to the development of the azimuthal modes the cross-sectional view of the
swirling jet was investigated for various locations downstream the nozzle.
3 Experimental Approach and Results
3.1 Governing Variables
Two dimensionless variables characterize the flow. The Reynolds number, defined as
Re = Du
ν
, is based on the nozzle diameter D and the average axial velocity u which is
extracted from the mean mass flow rate. The swirl number, defined as S = 2w(r=R/2)u(r=0) ,
provides a measure for the ratio between the maximum azimuthal velocity w to axial
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18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
velocity u. Another swirl number Sint, which is commonly used in the literature of
swirling flows, is defined as the ratio between the axial flux of angular momentum G˙θ
and the axial flux of axial momentum G˙x, thus
Sint =
G˙θ
RG˙x
=
2pi
∫∞
0
ρuwr2dr
R2pi
∫∞
0
(ρu2 + P)rdr
. (1)
For a pulsating swirling jet two additional parameters appear. The Strouhal number,
defined as St = Dfu , is necessary to nondimensionalize the frequency of the axial pulsing
and A = m˙max−m˙
m˙
characterizes the relative amplitude during a forcing cycle.
3.2 Setup
The experimental setup consists of a horizontal swirling jet discharging into a large
water tank that is 127cm long, 102cm wide and 102cm high. A 57.64cm long plexiglass
cylinder with an inner diameter of 26.2cm serves as an settling chamber and houses the
apparatus that generates the swirl. Similar to the method used by Billant et al. (1998),
the swirl was generated by passing the water through a rotating cylinder, placed in the
interior of the settling chamber. The jet axial velocity was generated by a pump. The
flow was set into a state of solid body rotation by inserting two honeycombs, 20cm long,
into the inner rotating cylinder. The swirling jet was then guided through a converging
nozzle attached to the outer cylinder and mounted to the tank. The flow was tripped by
a serrated ring that was glued to the interior surface of the contraction to improve the
symmetry of the flow. The nozzle diameter is D = 5.24cm. The relatively large size of
the test tank minimizes the effect of confinement and the measured recirculation currents
were found to be negligible. Axial pulsations were conducted by a piston connected to
the water circuit of the facility. A shaker provided sinusoidal motions and could be
run from 0.2Hz to 3Hz. A stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (STEREO-PIV) was
used to measure the flow field. It consists in the velocity measurement of particles
going through a laser sheet generated by a double pulsed Nd:Yag laser at 532nm and
and 400mJ in 5ns burst. Two X-STREAM VISION CCD cameras with a resolution
of 1.3 million pixels were used. Both cameras were positioned outside the water tank
facing the walls of the tank at 45◦. In order to avoid reflexions and distortions, two
prisms made of plexiglass and filled with water, were built and mounted on the outer
tank walls. Cameras, the laser and the piston were triggered in time in order to obtain
phase-locked data.
3.3 THE EXPERIMENTAL PROCESS
In order to transform the captured displacement of the particles in the flow into velocities
a calibration procedure was mandatory. Therefore the cameras had to be focused on a
target, aligned to the laser sheet, that was mounted in the water tank. Using the PIV
software a grid of points was mapped onto the pictures of the target manually to define
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18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
the physical length scale of the images. The pump was running continuously to provide
a constant temperature in the entire tank. Furthermore, the tank was covered in order
to avoid a temperature gradient due to surface evaporation. 20 minutes before acquiring
data the tank was mixed to obtain a homogeneous seeding. Phase locked data and
randomly averaged data was taken from each parameter set and location. The previous
was averaged over 125 events and the latter over 400.
4 Results
Investigations of the velocity fluctuations in the shear layer indicating a fully turbulent
flow, can be seen in the thesis of Oberleithner (2006). The axial flux of axial and angu-
lar momentum is independent of x. Thus, the integral swirl number Sint is constant with
x (figure (c)).
In figure (a) profiles of the axial and azimuthal velocity components for S = 1.3 are
shown. The transition of the axial velocity from a jet-like profile to a wake-like profile
is responsible for the change in sign of the azimuthal vorticity component. The hump
of the axial velocity profile at the jet center could be explained by an inviscid analysis
performed by Batchelor (1967). He explained the change in u by considering vortex
lines going through a contraction zone. The diminishing axial velocity on the jet axis
at x/D = 1.2 indicates the vortex breakdown. The swirl number S = 1.3 is derived
from the velocity profiles at x/D = 0.3. The maximum of the azimuthal velocity at
r/D = 0.25 at x/D = 0.3 and the appearence of a stagnation point for S = 1.3 compare
favorable to the results of Billant et al. (1998). Considering the flow as a Rankine vor-
tex with a superimposed axial velocity, the linear part of the azimuthal velocity can be
identified as the vortex core.
Due to centrifugal forces, the swirl generates a pressure gradient in the vortex core. In
order to nondimensionalize the pressure loss, the Bernoulli equation and the equation
representing the balance between pressure and centrifugal forces were introduced into
the definition of cp, becoming cp =
∫∞
0
w20
r dr−
∫∞
0
w2
r dr
1
2
u20
.
Figure (b) indicates the pressure decay which leads to the deceleration of the fluid at
the jet center. The gradient changes continuously with the swirl. The Reynolds number
dependence disappeares by using cp.
Velocity contours indicating azimuthal modes are displayed in Figure (d). The global
mode number decreases downstream from m = 4 to m = 2. The helical modes are
perfectly steady, otherwise the averaging process would have evened out any azimuthal
deformation. These results are in agreement with Loiseleux et al. (2003).
By introducing sinusoidal perturbations to the flow the location of vortex breakdown
alternates synchronously to the forcing, without any significant mean displacement for
most of the investigated parameters. Figure (e) shows the cp distribution during one
forcing cycle. For this particular parameter set, the region of the pressure decay associ-
ated with the vortex breakdown moves downstream while decreasing the intensity. The
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18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
phase-velocities and wavelength presented in figure (f) confirm that the shedding could
lock onto the forcing frequency for St = 0.78 in a better way than for St = 0.3, in
agreement with Khalali et al. (2006).
(a) velocity profiles [m/s] for Re = 3300 S = 1.3 Sint = 0.8 (b) distribution of cp representing
the loss of pressure
(c) development of axial flux of axial and angular momentum (d) axial velocity [m/s] S = 1.3
Sint = 0.8 Re = 3300
(e) cp distribution of pulsed swirling jet Re = 3300 S = 1.3 Sint = 0.8 St = 0.78 A = 22% (f) wavelength, phase-velocity
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18 ème Congrès Français de Mécanique Grenoble, 27-31 août 2007
5 Conclusions
Vortex breakdown of a fully turbulent jet was under investigation using STEREO-PIV.
An abrupt onset of vortex breakdown cannot be confirmed. The high turbulence level
in the shear layer is believed to be responsible for the continuous change of the static
pressure field with increasing swirl number. The momentum flux is conserved along
the jet axis, which brings credibility to the measured data. Furthermore, the use of cp
as a non dimensional variable to characterize the loss of static pressure by applying the
Bernoulli equation along the jet axis appears promising. Applying axial forcing at high
amplitudes, the location of vortex breakdown was set into alternating motion. Phase-
velocity and wavelength of the dominant coherent structures indicate the existence of
favored parameter sets, where the flow locks on the forcing frequency, resulting in a
significant displacement of the location of vortex breakdown. Cross-sectional contour
plots of the axial velocity components indicate azimuthal modes. As the azimuthal
modes remain perfectly steady the mode number can be determined from averaged data
as m ≤ 4. Further investigations will focus on the mechanisms of the azimuthal insta-
bilities, since they are believed to be responsible for the onset of vortex breakdown. A
pattern recognition software will be developed to post-process the PIV-Data in order to
expose phase-velocity and wavelength of the azimuthal modes more precisely.
References
Batchelor, G.K. 2006 An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Billant, P., Chomaz, J.M., Huerre, P. 1998 Experimental study of vortex breakdown in
swirling jets. J. Fluid Mech. 376 183-218
Khalali, S., Hourrigan, K., Thompson, M.C. 2006 Response of unconfined vortex break-
down to axial pulsing. Physics of Fluids 18 038102
Loiseleux, T., Chomaz, J.M. 2003 Breaking of rotational symmetry in a swirling jet
experiment. Physics of Fluids 15 511-523 num.2
Oberleithner, K. 2006 Vortex Breakdown in a Swirling Jet with Axial Forcing. Master
Thesis, Aerodynamic Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson
Panda, J., McLaughlin, D.K. 1993 Experiments on the instabilities of a swirling jet.
Physics of Fluids 6 263-276
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