Edge, cavity and aperture tones at very low Mach numbers

Abstract

This paper discusses self-sustaining oscillations of high-Reynolds-number shear layers and jets incident on edges and corners at infinitesimal Mach number. These oscillations are frequently sources of narrow-band sound, and are usually attributed to the formation of discrete vortices whose interactions with the edge or corner produce impulsive pressures that lead to the formation of new vorticity and complete a feedback cycle of operation. Linearized analyses of these interactions are presented in which free shear layers are modelled by vortex sheets. Detailed results are given for shear flows over rectangular wall apertures and shallow cavities, and for the classical jet–edge interaction. The operating stages of self-sustained oscillations are identified with poles in the upper half of the complex frequency plane of a certain impulse response function. It is argued that the real parts of these poles determine the Strouhal numbers of the operating stages observed experimentally for the real, nonlinear system. The response function coincides with the Rayleigh conductivity of the ‘window’ spanned by the shear flow for wall apertures and jet–edge interactions, and to a frequency dependent drag coefficient for shallow wall cavities. When the interaction occurs in the neighbourhood of an acoustic resonator, exemplified by the flue organ pipe, the poles are augmented by a sequence of poles whose real parts are close to the resonance frequencies of the resonator, and the resonator can ‘speak’ at one of these frequencies (by extracting energy from the mean flow) provided the corresponding pole has positive imaginary part.

The Strouhal numbers predicted by this theory for a shallow wall cavity agree well with data extrapolated to zero Mach number from measurements in air, and predictions for the jet–edge interaction are in excellent accord with data from various sources in the literature. In the latter case, the linear theory also agrees for all operating stages with an empirical, nonlinear model that takes account of the formation of discrete vortices in the jet.