Benchmark Experimental Data for Fully Stalled Wide-Angled Diffusers

Abstract

Due to adverse pressure gradient along the diverging walls of wide-angled diffusers, the attached flow separates from one wall and remains attached permanently to the other wall in a process called stalling. Separated diffuser flows provide a classical case of pressure driven flow separation. Such flows present a very serious challenge to fluid dynamics modelers. This paper provides a data bank contribution for the streamwise mean velocity field and pressure recovery data in wide-angled diffusers. Turbulent mean flow measurements were carried out at Reynolds numbers between 1.07×105 and 2.14×105 based on inlet hydraulic diameter and centerline velocity for diffusers whose divergence angles were between 30 deg and 50 deg. The results presented provide a reliable validation data bank for computational fluid dynamics studies for pressure driven flow separation studies.