Experimental Investigation of Supersonic Jets Using Optical Diagnostics

The complexity of many fluid flows and phenomena is a well-known characteristic driven primarily by turbulence, which has been a focal point of study for decades. Most engineering applications in fluids will encounter turbulence, and hence the need to understand how turbulence might influence the problem at hand is omnipresent. In many turbulent flows, there are large-scale coherent structures which directly influence macro-scale processes of engineering relevance, such as noise production. Over decades of study, it has been demonstrated that similar structures are often observed across many flowfields, despite differences in characteristic parameters, and this has led to the pursuit of simplified models through the use of these dominant, shared structures.

Large-scale, coherent structures are of particular importance in turbulent jets, as they represent efficient sources of sound. Noise reduction of subsonic and supersonic fluid jets represents a large interest in the study of acoustic production in jets, and much of it is viewed in the context of controlling these large-scale structures. Supersonic jets in particular may emit an intense sound known as jet screech as a consequence of these structures. This noise source easily has the potential to be damaging to both structures and humans in close proximity, and is a particular target of noise reduction efforts.

Turbulent flowfields from two supersonic, underexpanded, screeching jets are analyzed by means of three non-intrusive, high-speed, optical diagnostics. The first technique is high-speed schlieren. The second technique is pulse-burst particle image velocimetry (PB-PIV). The third technique is known as focused laser differential interferometry (FLDI).

Extensive spectral, statistical, and modal decomposition analyses are used in this work to identify, extract, and characterize the most energetic features and coherent structures associated with jet screech. The large field of view of the image-based datasets is fully taken advantage of by creating spatial maps of spectral and statistical quantities, which highlight regions of increased fluctuations or activity. These are shown to agree with, or demonstrate additional features that could not be reproduced by the modal analyses. Modal analyses are used to evaluate the structure of the most energetic components in the flow of both screeching jets.