The near pressure field of co-axial subsonic jets

Abstract

Results are presented from pressure measurements performed in the irrotational near field of unbounded co-axial jets. Measurements were made for a variety of velocity and temperature ratios, and configurations both with and without serrations on the secondary nozzle lip. The principal objective of the study is to better understand the near pressure field of the jet, what it can tell us regarding the underlying turbulence structure, and in particular how it can be related to the source mechanisms of the flow.A preliminary analysis of the axial, temporal and azimuthal structure of the pressure field shows it to be highly organized, with axial spatial modes (obtained by proper orthogonal decomposition) which resemble Fourier modes. The effects of serrations on the pressure fluctuations comprise a global reduction in level, a change in the axial energy distribution, and a modification of the evolution of the characteristic time scales.A further analysis in frequency–wavenumber space is then performed, and a filtering operation is used to separate the convective and propagative footprints of the pressure field. This operation reveals two distinct signatures in the propagating component of the field: a low-frequency component which radiates at small angles to the flow axis and is characterized by extensive axial coherence, and a less-coherent high-frequency component which primarily radiates in sideline directions. The serrations are found to reduce the energy of the axially coherent propagating component, but its structure remains fundamentally unchanged; the high-frequency component is found to be enhanced. A further effect of the serrations involves a relative increase of the mean-square pressure level of the acoustic component – integrated over the measurement domain – with respect to the hydrodynamic component. The effect of increasing the velocity and temperature of the primary jet involves a relative increase in the acoustic component of the near field, while the hydrodynamic component remains relatively unchanged: this shows that the additional acoustic energy is generated by the mixing region which is produced by the interaction of the inner and the outer shear layers, whereas the hydrodynamic component of the near field is primarily driven by the outer shear layer.