Velocity fields in mixing-enhanced compressible shear layers

Abstract

Planar velocity fields of mixing-enhanced compressible planar shear layers are measured via particle image velocimetry (PIV) in order to investigate the mechanism of mixing enhancement by sub-boundary-layer triangular disturbances. The measurements are conducted at convective Mach numbers, $M_{{c}}$, of 0.62 and 0.24 to examine compressibility effects on effectiveness of the mixing enhancement technique. Instantaneous side- and plan-view vector maps of the shear layers are obtained, and turbulence statistical quantities are derived from the instantaneous velocity data. Schlieren and planar laser Mie scattering (PLMS) techniques are also used to measure the shear-layer thickness and growth rate as well as surveying the qualitative flow fields. The velocity fields for several disturbance configurations with different shape, size, or thickness are compared in terms of the shear-layer thickness and growth rate in order to investigate the effects of the configuration variation on the mixing enhancement strategy. Configuration parameters include thickness, the semi-vertex angle of the triangular disturbance, and the streamwise offset of the disturbance from the splitter tip. The measured transverse profile of the mean streamwise velocity shows a characteristic shape with triple inflection points for the effective mixing-enhanced cases at the two different compressibility conditions, while periodic inflection points are observed in the spanwise direction. A pair of stationary counter-rotating streamwise vortices introduced by the subboundary-layer disturbances are also observed, even in the fully developed region of the shear layers. At $M_{{c}}\,{=}\,0.62$, it is found that in successfully enhanced cases, regardless of the disturbance configurations, the present mixing-enhancement strategy has the effect of increasing the turbulence intensity and Reynolds stress, and suppressing the turbulence anisotropy increase with increasing compressibility, i.e. alleviating the compressibility effect which intrinsically reduces pressure–strain-rate redistribution, leading to effective mixing enhancement. Comparison of the results at the two compressibility conditions reveals that the growth rate of the layer is almost constant in the streamwise direction for all cases at $M_{{c}}\,{=}\,0.62$, while for all disturbed cases at $M_{{c}}\,{=}\,0.24$, after an initial layer thickening, growth rate decreases with downstream distance to the value for the undisturbed case, indicating that the present mixing enhancement is less effective at nearly incompressible conditions.