Title: Numerical simulation of highly-swirling supersonic flow inside a Laval nozzle

Authors: Zhongliang Liu, Juntao Ding, Wenming Jiang, Jian Zhang, Yongxun Feng

Addresses: Key Lab of Enhanced Heat Transfer and Energy Conservation, the Ministry of Education, College of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, China. ' The University Library, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, China. ' Key Lab of Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion, Beijing Education Commission, College of Environmental and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100022, China. ' Shengli Engineering Design and Consulting Company, Dongying 257062, Shandong Province, China. ' Shengli Engineering Design and Consulting Company, Dongying 257062, Shandong Province, China

Abstract: A high speed compressible gas was introduced tangentially into an adiabatic convergent-divergent nozzle, thus a highly swirling supersonic compressible flow was formed. Numerical simulations were carried out of the flow situations with various inlet swirling intensity. Both temperature and velocity distributions inside the nozzle are obtained. The average centrifugal acceleration at the nozzle outlet is computed and its relation with the inlet centrifugal acceleration was analysed. It was found that although shock wave may well exist at the nozzle throat, the swirling intensity or vorticity can still be enlarged by a factor of 2 to 10 at the nozzle outlet.

Keywords: compressible supersonic flow; highly-swirling adiabatic flow; convergent-divergent nozzles; numerical simulation; inlet swirling intensity; temperature distribution; velocity distribution; swirling flows; CFD; computational fluid dynamics.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2008.021332

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2008 Vol.8 No.7/8, pp.536 - 540

Published online: 19 Nov 2008 *

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