Computational Fluid Dynamics of Co-axial Unconfined Isothermal Swirling Jets

Abstract

The topological changes in the recirculation structures that were observed in one of the author’s experimental work have been validated using a numerical technique. In particular, Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) methodology is employed to simulate the unconfined co-axial isothermal swirl flow field. Two different turbulent models, i.e. k–ε and RSM, are employed to investigate the turbulent flow field for the different Reynolds and swirl number configurations. The streamlines showed good agreement of numerical results with previous experimental results. Further insights into swirling flow field are gained by turbulent kinetic energy field.