Experimental Studies of Turbulent Flow in a Porous Circular Tube With Uniform Fluid Injection Through the Tube Wall

Abstract

Fully developed turbulent flow of air at Re = 28,000 to 82,000 entered a porous tube with circular cross section. Air was injected uniformly through the tube wall for 18 diameters at various ratios of mass velocity through the tube wall to the average mass velocity at the entrance cross section of the tube, ranging from 0.00246 to 0.0584. Tests were also made with zero entrance velocity at the upstream end of the porous tube so that the flow developed in the tube exclusively as a result of the uniform mass injection through the tube wall. Most of the change in the shape of the velocity profiles, in the internal and wall shear, in the momentum flux factor, and in the friction factor occurred within the first 10 to 12 diameters of the tube length. Some changes even persisted further downstream, caused by the fact that mass is continuously injected along the porous tube. The parameters mentioned above, however, become independent of axial position for normalized distances downstream from the entrance cross section larger than x/D = 10 to 12, when they are considered as function of the ratio of injection velocity to average main flow velocity at the specific axial location. Eddy diffusivity values agreed in this presentation reasonably with the results of measurements in turbulent tube flow without injection. Normalized friction factors agreed with values measured in external flow. Properly normalized velocity defect profiles with injection agreed with those for flow without injection.