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An experimental investigation has been carried out to assess the effectiveness of truncated triangular tabs, provided with corrugations (semicircular, triangle, and square shapes) all along their edges, capable of shedding small-scale vortices of continuously varying size, in enhancing the mixing of axi-symmetric Mach 2 jet, at different levels of expansion. The performance of all the tabs were found to be effective only in the near-field of the jet at all levels of expansion of the present investigation. Both the semicircular and square corrugated tabs were found to bifurcate the jet, in two parts (lobes), at x/D ≤ 1, than the triangular corrugated tab, at all the nozzle pressure ratios (NPRs) of the present study. Among the controlled jets, the semicircular corrugated tab is found to be the best mixing promoter at NPRs 6 and 7, for the Mach 2 jet. However at NPRs 4, 5 and 8, the mixing promoting performance of uncorrugated tabs is the best; as high as 91% reduction in jet core length is achieved with semicircular corrugations. Therefore, the mixing promoting capability of truncated triangular tabs with semicircular corrugated tab assumes a maximum, around the overexpansion level with adverse pressure gradient of around 10% (corresponding to NPR7). Shadowgraph images reveal, that the waves prevailing in the near-field for the controlled jets are rendered weaker than those of uncontrolled jet.

The research work reported here investigates driving behavior under mixed traffic conditions on high-speed, multilane highways. With the involvement of multiple vehicle classes, high-resolution trajectory data is necessary for exploring vehicle-following, lateral movement, and seeping behavior under varying traffic flow states. An access-controlled, mid-block road section was selected for video data collection under varying traffic flow conditions. Using a semi-automated image processing tool, vehicular trajectory data was developed for three different traffic states. Micro-level behavior such as lateral placement of vehicles as a function of speed, instant responses, vehicle-following behavior, and hysteresis phenomenon were evaluated under different traffic flow states. It was found that lane-wise behavior degraded with increase in traffic volume and vehicles showed a propensity to move towards the median at low flow and towards the curb-side at moderate and heavy flows. Further, vehicle-following behavior was also investigated and it was found that with increase in flow level, vehicles are more inclined to mimic the leader vehicle’s behavior. In addition to following time, perceiving time of subject vehicle for different leading vehicles was also evaluated for different vehicle classes. From the analysis, it was inferred that smaller vehicles are switching their leader vehicles more often to escape from delay, resulting in less following and perceiving time and aggressive gap acceptance. The present research work reveals the need for high-quality, micro-level data for calibrating driving behavior models under mixed traffic conditions.

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