Transition of a Steady to a Periodically Unsteady Flow for Various Jet Widths of a Combined Wall Jet and Offset Jet

Abstract

In the present paper, a dual jet consisting of a wall jet and an offset jet has been numerically simulated using twodimensional unsteady ReynoldsAveraged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations to examine the effects of jet width (w) variation on the near flow field region. The Reynolds number based on the separation distance between the two jets (d) has been considered to be Re = 10,000. According to the computational results, three distinct flow regimes have been identified as a function of w/d. For w/d ≤ 0.5, the flow field remains to be always steady with two counterrotating stable vortices in between the two jets. On the contrary, within the range of 0.6 ≤ w/d < 1.6, the flow field reveals a periodic vortex shedding phenomenon similar to what would be observed in the wake of a twodimensional bluff body. In this flow regime, the Strouhal number of vortex shedding frequency decreases monotonically with the progressive increase in the jet width. For w/d ≥ 1.6, the periodic vortex shedding is still evident, but the Strouhal number becomes insensitive to the variation of jet width.