Experimental Investigation of a Spanwise Forced Mixing Layer

Abstract

The control of mixing by manipulation of instability modes leading to the formation of vortical structures has a direct impact on the performance of propulsion systems. In the plane mixing layer, mixing is accomplished by two- dimensional entrainment associated with spanwise vortices, and three-dimensional motion induced by packets of streamwise counter-rotating vortex pairs. Our research goal is to advance the state of understanding of the basic fluid mechanics of the mixing layer to aid in the implementation of real-time closed loop control schemes. To this end, the evolution of spanwise and streamwise instabilities has been investigated by independent forcing in the streamwise and spanwise directions. The flow is forced by means of a mosaic of individually controlled surface heaters, which allows for flexible programming of complex spatial/temporal forms of excitation. The downstream evolution of the spanwise instability and its dependence on the configuration are studied using Schlieren visualization and velocity measurements taken with a rake of hot wire probes. Pulsed 2-D and 3-D forcing is also used to study the temporal evolution of the flow. Mixing layer, Surface heaters, Streamwise vortices, Spanwise vortices, Mixing transition.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 28, 1988
Accession Number
ADA204557

Entities

People

  • A. Glezer
  • I. J. Wygnanski
  • T. F. Balsa

Organizations

  • University of Arizona

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Flow Visualization
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Measurement
  • Mechanical Phenomena
  • Mechanics
  • Photographs
  • Resonant Frequency
  • Reynolds Number
  • Three Dimensional
  • Turbulence
  • Turbulent Flow
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Robotics and Automation.