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Paradoxical predictions of swirling jets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

A.V. Dubovskaya
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick, Limerick V94 T9PX, Ireland
E.S. Benilov*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick, Limerick V94 T9PX, Ireland
*
Email address for correspondence: eugene.benilov@ul.ie

Abstract

This paper examines the shape of a steady jet with a swirling component, ejected from a circular orifice at an angle to the horizontal. Assuming the Froude number to be large, we derive a set of asymptotic equations for a slender jet. In the inviscid limit, the solutions of the set predict that, if the swirling velocity of the flow exceeds a certain threshold, the jet bends against gravity and rises until the initial supply of the liquid's kinetic energy is used up. This effect is due to the fact that the contributions of the swirl and streamwise velocities to the centrifugal force are of opposite signs, with their sum to be balanced by gravity. As a result, swirl- and streamwise-dominated jets bend in opposite directions. Downward-bending jets also exhibit counter-intuitive behaviour. If the swirling velocity is strong enough (but is still below the above threshold), the streamwise velocity on the jet's axis may decrease with the distance from the orifice, despite the acceleration due to gravity. Eventually, a stagnation point emerges due to this effect, arguably destabilising the jet. Also paradoxically, viscosity-dominated jets can reach higher (if they bend upwards) and farther (in all cases) than their inviscid counterparts, due to the fact that viscosity suppresses formation of stagnation points.

JFM classification

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1. The setting: a jet ejected from a circular outlet. Here $( l,r,\phi )$ are the curvilinear coordinates associated with the jet's centreline, and $\alpha (l)$ is the angle between the centreline and the horizontal.

Figure 1

Figure 2. The trajectories of inviscid jets described by boundary-value problem (4.2)–(4.13a,b), with entry conditions (4.24) and $\alpha _{0}=0$. The curves are marked with corresponding values of $\omega _{0}$. Note that curve (1) is the only one that continues indefinitely, whereas curve (5) continues beyond the boundary of this figure, but eventually stops.

Figure 2

Figure 3. The cross-sectional profiles of the streamwise velocity $u$ and swirl velocity $w$ for the (upward-bending) jets with (a,b) $\omega _{0}=5$ and (c,d) $\omega _{0}=7$. The positions of the cross-sections are marked on the jets’ trajectories in figure 2 by circles with the corresponding values of $\omega _{0}$.

Figure 3

Figure 4. The cross-sectional profiles of the streamwise velocity $u$ and swirl velocity $w$ for the (downward-bending) jets with (a,b) $\omega _{0}=1$ and (c,d) $\omega _{0}=3$. The positions of the cross-sections are marked on the jets’ trajectories in figure 2 by circles with the corresponding values of $\omega _{0}$.

Figure 4

Figure 5. The trajectories of jets with $\omega _{0}=3.5$ and various $\alpha _{0}$. The curves are marked by the corresponding values of $\alpha _{0}$ (in degrees).

Figure 5

Figure 6. The cross-sectional velocity profiles for the (downward-bending) jet with $\omega _{0}=3.5$ and $\alpha _{0}=45^{\circ }$. One can see that fluid particles on the jet's axis accelerate on the way up and decelerate on the way down.

Figure 6

Figure 7. The trajectories of jets with $\alpha _{0}=0$ and (1) $\omega _{0}=3.99$, (2) $\omega _{0}=3.9$, (3) $\omega _{0}=3$. The solid curves show the approximate (small-$\delta$) solution, and the dotted curves, the numerical solution of boundary-value problem (4.2)–(4.13a,b).

Figure 7

Figure 8. Comparison of viscosity-dominated (solid line) and inviscid (dotted line) jets with $\alpha _{0}=0$. The curves are marked with the corresponding values of $\omega _{0}$. For $\omega _{0} = 1$, the solid and dotted curves are indistinguishable.