Passive scalar dispersion and mixing in a turbulent jet

Abstract

The dispersion and mixing of passive scalar (temperature) fluctuations is studied in a turbulent jet. The temperature fluctuations were produced by heated fine wire rings placed axisymmetrically in the flow. Typically the ring diameters were of the same order as the jet,Dj, and they were placed in the self-similar region. However, other initial conditions were studied, including a very small diameter ring used to approximate a point source. Using a single ring to study dispersion (which is analogous to placing a line source in a planar flow such as grid turbulence), it was found that the intense local thermal field close to the ring disperses and fills the whole jet in approximately 1.5 eddy turnover times. Thereafter the thermal field evolves in the same way as for the traditional heated jet experiments. Two heated rings were used to study the mixing of two independently introduced scalar fields. Here an inference method (invoking the principle of superposition) was used to determine the evolution of the cross-correlation coefficient, ρ, and the segregation parameter, α, as well as the coherence and co-spectrum. While initially strongly dependent on ring locations and spacing, ρ and α reached asymptotic values of 1 and 0.04, respectively, also in about 1.5 eddy turnover times. These results are contrasted with mixing and dispersion in grid turbulence where the evolution is slower. Measurements in the far field of the jet (where ρ = 1) of the square of the scalar derivative conditioned on the scalar fluctuation itself, as well as other conditional statistics, showed strong dependence on the measurement location, as well as the direction in which the derivative was determined. The cross-correlation between the square of the scalar derivative and the signal showed a clear Reynolds-number trend, decreasing as the jet Reynolds number was varied from 2800 to 18 000. The far-field measurements, using the heated rings, were corroborated by new heated jet experiments.