An experimental study of underexpanded sonic, coaxial, swirl jets

The present study addresses experimental investigations of the near-field flow structures of an underexpanded sonic, dual, coaxial, swirl jet. The swirl stream is discharged from the secondary annular nozzle and the primary inner nozzle provides the underexpanded free jets. The interactions between the secondary swirl and primary underexpanded jets are quantified by a fine pitot impact and static pressure measurements and are visualized using a shadowgraph optical method. The pressure ratios of the secondary swirl and primary underexpanded jets are varied below 7.0. Experiments are conducted to investigate the effects of the secondary swirl stream on the primary underexpanded jets, compared with the secondary stream of no swirl. The results show that the presence of an annular swirl stream causes the Mach disc to move further downstream, with an increased diameter, and remarkably reduces the fluctuations of the impact pressures in the underexpanded sonic dual coaxial jet, compared with the case of the secondary annular stream with no swirl.