The Influence of Variable Density on Turbulent Wall Jet: A Numerical Comparative Study

Abstract

The first objective of this numerical research is to help understand the influence of variable density on the structure of turbulence, through the study of a wall jet, and to validate our results with those of the experimental study of A. Soudani. The source of density variation is the mixture between two different non-reactive fluids, with a fixed temperature and pressure. A mass weighted averaging for different variables is applied to the calculation, using ANSYS FLUENT 15.0 commercial software. The principal experience consists of injecting tangentially and alternatively near the wall a gas (air-helium) different from the external flow, through a slot of height 3mm between two plane walls. Such a process permits to provoke an important density difference. The study reaches the conclusion that turbulence is strong, with a slight increase of velocity near the wall and an evident diminution of skin friction, in the case of light fluid injection. The second aim is to estimate the Kolmogorov and large eddies’ scales to construct LES grid to access instant variables in experience.