Mapping of the turbulent round jet developing region using a constant temperature anemometer (CTA)

The fully developed round turbulent jet has been extensively studied, whereas the developing region is much less understood. The high shear and turbulence intensities in the most interesting parts of the developing region make them inaccessible to common measurement techniques such as Constant Temperature Anemometry (CTA) due to the high demands on the measurement techniques for accuracy of the measurements. Turbulence measurements are therefore planned using our in-house laser Doppler anemometer (LDA) system based on its capability to provide accurate measurements and with its inherent ability to properly distinguish velocity components. A rigorous measurement with the intended LDA system however demands impractical processing time, so knowing the critical points at which measurement are to be taken will save valuable time. This information is herein acquired significantly faster and more practically, however less accurately, with single-wire CTA. A high-resolution measurement was done using a computer-controlled single-wire CTA with the wire probe mounted perpendicular to the incoming flow from the jet orifice. The measurements covered several points in the radial (r-direction) along x/D= 10, x/D= 15, x/D= 20 and x/D= 30 downstream (where D is the jet exit diameter), with spatial resolutions ranging from 1 to 3 mm between the points, depending on how far the measurement was from the jet centerline. A proper alignment was also conducted prior to measurement so that the same points can be reached again for LDA measurement on the same jet afterwards. The radial profiles of mean velocity and turbulence intensity at each downstream position are presented to show the statistics of the air flow inside and outside the jet. As expected from theory, the mean profiles display a nearly Gaussian shape, spread out and tapered with the downstream direction. The highest velocities are located at the centerline.