ELSEVIER Experimental Thermal and Fluid Seieee 16 (1998) 220-236 Velocity measurements in the near field of a radial swirler L. Khezzar ! Mechanical Enginering Department, Setan Qaboos University, Muscat, Ooxan Reccved 8 May 1996; recived in revised form 19 February 1997; accepted 25 March 1997 Abstract ‘Contes curbulent air swirling flows are investigated for two configurations where swirls produced by a conventional radial ype swirler. The flow Reynolds number based on the bulk velocity in the downstream pipe was equal t0 15,000 and the swirl number cevalusted using velocity profiles in the downstream pipe was equal to 1.5, The flow downstream ofthe swirler has been quantified by measurements of three velocity components and their corresponding rms values along the radial direction and for several axial po- sitions using laser Doppler anemometry. The downstream flow structure revealed the existence of an off-axis reverse flow region and a forced-vortex type of flow in the inner region and free-vortex in the outer one. The strength of the inner vortex is maintained with downstream distance, The results representa set of benchmark data for va Ine, All rights reserved. idation of calculation methods. © 1998 Elsevier Science Keyword: Swising Mow; Swirlrs: Turbulent flow; Fluid velocity measurements; Resiroulation bubble 1. Introduction Swirlers are used in gas turbine combustors to impart rotation to the internal air flow. The resulting swirling motion ensures flame stabilisation and improved mixing between the fuel and air and thus increased combustion efficiency. Better economical design is currently motivat- ed by the need to obtain low levels of pollutants and im= prove the exit temperature distribution from the combustor. Although real swirling combustor flows involve com- bustion with combined heat and mass transfer, it is nonetheless instructive to study model swirl combustors tunder noncombusting conditions. The absence of com- bustion allows to isolate the effect of real flow dynamics phenomena. Several arrangements representing different concepts of the combustor geometry have been investi- gated earlier, under isothermal confined turbulent con- ditions, such as co-axial confined jets of So et al. [1], Habib ‘and Whitelaw [2], Vu and Gouldin [3], Altgeld al. [4] or a single confined jet as that of Rhode et al ‘A shared characteristic of confined swirling flows is the presence of a recirculation bubble in the core of the flow, either on- or off-axis, as a result of the adverse " Addcess College of Engingering, Sultan Qaboos University, PO. Box 33, AlzKhood, Muscat 123, Oman. Tel: #968 S15 353; fax: +968 S13 a6, (0894-1777/98/S19.00 © 1988 Elsevier Selene Inc. All ight reserved, Pu: §0894-1777(97)10027-9 pressure gradient on the axis. Mate specifically, Pscu ier and Keller (6] found that isothermal supereritical and sub-crtical swirling flows exhibit different sensitiv ties to changes in exit conditions, and this is particularly relevant to flow computations. Generally the resulting flow topology depends on the strength of the swirl mo- tion, the particular design of the swirler itself and how swirl is imparted and the boundary conditions of the geometry as experienced in [7]. Under certain circum- stances however, strong swirl may lead to damping of turbulence transport and thus swirl effects ean become undesirable and designers need therefore to understand them for better control of the resulting flow features. ‘The research effort to date in the aerothermodynamic design of combustors has had the objective of achieving a better understanding of the complex phenomena ass0- ciated with swirling flows and an improvement in the ac~ curacy and predictive capabilities of turbulence models, and computational methods as can be seen in [8-10]. Itis now recognised that calculations of strongly swirl- ing flows are better handled through the use of a second ‘moment closure turbulenes model, se [11], and that the ‘ke model is inadequate to compute such flows as it pre- dicts too high rates of mixing. The present work reports on the air flow velocity field under isothermal, confined turbulent conditions down- stream of a specific design of a model radial inflow swirl er of industrial relevance. Relatively few studies haveLK been conducted on turbulent flows generated by radial inflow swirlers. Emphasis is on the near flow field gener- ated by such a swirler in two geometrical configurations. Laser Doppler anemometry is used to obtain the de- tailed velocity measurements in the downstream swirling flow. A further objective of this work is to obtain accu- rate fluid velocity measurements that can be used as a benchmark set of data to assess the accuracy of calcula- tion methods. ‘Tho experimental getup and flow geometry are do scribed in the following section together with the mea- surement technique. The results are presented and discussed next, followed by the conclusions. 2. The experimental method 2.1. Flow configuration The geometrical details of the model swirler, which was carefully machined from Plexiglas, are given in Fig. 1. The swirler possesses eigit arms, equally distrib- uted around the circumference of its plate, as shown in Tig. 1. The axial width of each radial inlet passage, de- fined in the figure, is 4 mm, The steady flow air cirenit is a suetion system driven by a centrifuugal exhauster. The air, drawn from the stag- nant surrounding room atmosphere, enters the test sec- tion and hence the swirler in the radial direction. It consists of a test section, an adapter followed by a2 in plastic pipe and a standard BS orifice plate meter. A U-tube water manometer was connected to. pressure taps located both upstream and downstream of the plate and allowed monitoring of the flow rate through the test section, The exhauster was operated at constant speed and the air flow rate through the test section was regu- lated by a valve located between the orifice meter and the exhauster. Two test sections were used and Fig, 2 il- lustrates both of them. Both test sections incorporated the radial swirler in two dlfferent manners. In the first one, which will be referred to hereafter as case 1, the Fig. 1, Details of the swirler, dimensions in mm. ar Experimenual Thermal and Fail Science 16 (1998) 230-236 231 Fig. 2, Test section deseription, dimensions in mm. swirler is directly connected to a fairing, then a perspex downstream pipe with a length of 350 mm, and internal and outside diameter of 84 and 90 mm, respectively. In the second one, referred {0 as case 2, the configuration 1s similar to case | in all respects except that a short per- spex pipe, shown in Fig. 2 by the dotted linc, of 46 mm inside diameter and 27 mm in length, is inserted be- tween the swirler and the fairing. The short-pipe insert ‘or spool pipe is supposed to represent the pre-chamber. In order to provide an outlet boundary without re- verse flow an aluminium batile of 54 mm diameter and 4 mm thickness was located at a distance of 100 mm from the end of the downstream pipe in all eases. The batfle was rigidly located with a central rod of 100 mm. in length which was firmly maintained in its position by a number of rods arranged in a spider form and fixed to a circular ring pushed in the downstream pipe. The contraction between the 84 mm diameter pipe and the 2 in. extract pipe was afforded by a Plexiglas adapter (uot shown). 2.2. Experimemal technique ‘The laser Doppler ancmometer consisted of & Spec~ tra-Physics Argon-lon air cooled laser operating at 514.5 nm with a power output of 250 mW, a transmit- ng optical unit and a receiving unit, and was operated with forward collected scattered light off-axis. The sys tem was mounted on a milling table which could be tr versed in the three spatial directions with a precision of 0.05 mm. A rotating diffraction grating-based unit was used. It consisted of a focusing, a collimating and an imaging lens. The collection part of the system consisted of a DANTEC (55 x 34) PM opties and a Burle Indus- tries 4526V1 photomultiplier tube. The output of the photomultiplier tube was amplified prior to processing. ‘The principal characteristics of the optical arrangements, are summarised in Table 1 The output signal of the photomultiplier was pro- cessed by a frequency counter signal processor (TSI 1990C) which was interfaced to a 386 IBM PC to obtain ensemble averaged mean and rms velocities from a st tistically sufficient number of samples (4000), Correc- tions for the refraction of the beams at the cylindrical walls of the test section were applied for the swirl com- ponent of velocity22 Le Tale 1 Optical characteristics of LDA configurations Laser Wavelength (am) suas Power (ni) 280 eum ext diameter os Optics sng len (Un) 0 CColimating lens (Pm) 300 ing lens (nn won Frequency shift (MHz) 6 Half angle intersection (o) 478 “Measuring volume Length (um) 776 Effective length (um) 300 Diameter (um) ot Fringe spacing (um) 322 The air flow was seeded with silicone oi droplets of up to 3 um diameter, generated in a blast-type atomiser and introduced with almast zero: momentum in the ple= ‘num region surrounding the inlet to the swirler so as t0 produce minimum disturbance to the inlet flow. Possible sources of measurement uncertainties, see [12], include velocity bias and velocity gradient broaden- ing which is only important in regions of large mean ve- locity gradients. Employing off-axis collection, high frequency shift and a small pinhole on the photomulti- plier these uncertainties were reduced to insignificant levels. The timing uncertainty in the TSI counter equipped with a I GHz clock is also negligible. The sta- tistical uncertainty due to finite sample size was at most equal to 2.5% for the mean velocity in regions of high turbulence intensity and up to 3% for the rms velocities. ‘The overall uncertainty in the measurement of mean and rms velocities is estimated to be not more than 5% and 10%, respectively. 3. Results The experimental results consisted of measurements of averaged mean and rms components in the axial, ra- dial and tangential directions. for the two geometrical configurations studied of cases I and 2, All the measure- ‘ments were obtained at a Reynolds number based on the downstream pipe diameter and fluid bulk velocity equal to 15,000. The swirl number obtained from the profiles at x 10mm was equal to 1.5 and was calculated using the relation Rl Ora i) Integration of the axial velocity profiles in all cases pwoducad volume Sewratts which varied by let than 10% and values of this magnitude were found only for profiles with steep velocity gradients. The velocity pro- Hes were oblained af axial positons dowastream of the reference location for case I and both upstream ar | Experimenal Thermal and Fail Science 16 (1998) 230-236 and downstream of it, for ease 2. As shown in Fig, 2, the reference position corresponds to the intersection of the fairing with the downstream pipe. The velocity re- sults have been normalised by the bulk velocity Us, cal- culated from the profile at the exit annular space, in the downstream pipe which was equal to 2.53 mvs for cases and 2. Prior to each set of measurements the symmetry Of the flow was checked at selected stations downstream and upstream of the reference location and found to be ‘within 2% in the mean velocity and therefore only half diameter profiles are shown. ‘The axial velocity component for case 1 and responding rms are depicted in Fig. 3 for differe locations. They reveal the existence of an off-axis recir- culation region with a maximum reverse velocity equal to around twice the bulk velocity at, x= 10 mm, and de~ cays subsequently to levels equal to the bulk velocity. ‘The reverse flow region extends at x= 10 mm from a r dial position of 1 =0.2 to a position of PR =0.7. Thi radial extent subsequently narrows in the downstream direction. The radial profiles of the axial mean velocity sugeest, thus, the presence of two recirculating bubbles of annular shape occupying over 80% of the radius of the pipe at x—10 mm as observed by Paler and Leibov- itch [13]. The inner weak vortex is formed of relatively slow moving fluid. This structure of two nested wortioes which circulate in an opposite manner was also ob- served. albeit in laminar water flow, by Bornstein and Excudier [14], who used a radial inflow van swirler. ‘The maximum axial positive velocities occur in the outer part of the flow near te wall, whieieas the eeatal vegion is characterised by small absolute positive velocities, Fig. 3, Anal velocity, Mean and ms, ease 1Le which vary from 0.316G%, atx 10 mun to negative near zero at x=20) mm, suggesting a rear stagnation point for the bubbles structure in a similar fashion to the flows of Faler and Leibovitch (13). The gradual pipe wall ex- pansion and the recirculating toroidal bubbles which provide blockage to the flow are both responsible for the acceleration of the axial flow near the wall of the downstream pipe and the removal of the expansion re- circulation zone, see [3,5]. In Fig. 3, it can be observed that, the radial distribution of the rms velocity is not Uniform. Because of high gradients of mean velocity near the wall and along the centre line, the correspond- ing rms velocities reach a maximum of 3.04U, at x= 10 mm in the outer part of the flow, show two relative peaks near the wall and along the céntre line, and decay in the downstream direction to adopt a uniform profile with a marked decrease near the axis at x= 200 mm with a value of around 0.9U,,. The decay is relatively rapid and is indicative of diffusion and dissipation. In the case ‘of combustion being present. predicting its effect would be tentative, however, as previously observed by other workers, see [7], it can be expected to enlarge the recir- culation zone and lead to higher levels of turbulence in- The maximum mean swirl velocity in Fig. 4 has a val hie of ahout 14d, at y= 150-mm. The profiles are similar in shape at all the stations and adopt a peak down- stream at a radial position of 0.4R, which marks the end of a forced-vortex region. The swirl velocity profiles clearly exhibit an inner solid-body rotation and an outer Fiee-vortes structure. The combination of the inet aud outer structure tends to but never approaches a Burger's vortex velocity distribution with downstream distance oe Sta 06 04 02 os ne 04 02 ar | Experimenval Thermal and Fluid Science 16 (1998) 230-236 233 “The approximation vo the Burgers velocity distribution as given by the equation w E(1- ee 2) vas only satisfactory for the inner core region, wheat curve fit was attempted, In the outer region, there was a notable discrepancy between the measured data and the above equation as noticed previously in [14]. The switl velocity profile approaching but never completely attaining a Burger's vortex isa common feuture of single swirling flows with radial inflow, se (3,14), which, from a calculation scheme’s point of view, can be captured by 4 full Reynolds stress closure but one that remains inad- quately accounted for by the k-e turbulence model, as shown by Hogg and Lesehziner [8]. Examination of the axial development of the swirl velocity profiles reveal that the strength of the inner vortex is maintained up to a downstream distance of x= 150 mm. If the inner core is delimited by the radial position of the local max- imum sit! velocity as postulated above, one can ob- serve that almost no expansion of the inner core ean be detected. In the outer region, however, the axial gra- dient of the tangential velocity is significant and is re- sponsible for the onset of reverse flow in that region. ‘A simplified analysis based on the quasi-eylindrical ap- proximation to the radial component of the momentum equation leads to the following expression for the axial pressure gradient ap) _ (ar. af" por (im). (He). © If the second term on the right-hand side desays cam uuously with axial distance as is the case here, an adverse pressure gradient is set up, with the consequence of re- verse flow. Various other explanations, not entirely sat= isfactory, for the occurrence of a recirculating bubble in swirling ows have been formulated in addition to the simplified one given above. One that particularly de- serves mention is given by Brown and Lopez [15], who have shown, on the basis of theoretical considerations, that in an axisymmetric swirling pipe flow, the produc- tion of negative azimuthal vorticity which is dominated by inviscid mechanisms leads to divergence of the streamlines and consequently to a recirculating bubble. ‘The corresponding rms velocities reach maximum, values of 2.5U in the outer part of the flow over the frst 30 mm and decay with downstream distance to less than 0.9U,, at x=150 mm, In a similar fashion to the axial component the centre line values of the rms velocities re- ‘main relatively high, with downstream decay only im- portant in the outer core region, where viscous diffusion it seems, is more predominant ‘The radial velocity component and its corresponding ims values are represented in Fig, 5 for three axial sta- tions. The mean profiles are similar in shape, with posi tive and negative values and a maximum nearly equal to the bulk velocity. The distribution of the negative and positive values along the radius confirms the presence of the nested counter-rotating vortices. The rms profiles98) 2 me os |= ® os oz ° viue Fig 5, Ral velocity, mean and ms, cas | have peaks on the axis and in the vicinity of the outer wall which are associated with gradients in the corre sponding mean velocity profiles. The levels are almost equal to those of the swirl rms velocities at the same ax- ial Locations Fig. 6 presents mean axial velocity profiles for three axial locations one upstream at x=~25 mm and two downstream of the fairing at x=10 and x=50 mm for 36 aes Fis. 6, Axial velocity, mean and rms case 2 ar | Experimenval Thermal and Fail Science 16 (1998) 230-236 case 2 and are similar in shape 1 those of case 1 in the downstream pipe. They reveal the existence of an off-axis reverse flow region and indicate also the pres- ence of counter-rotating vortices, which extend up- stream of the fairing inside the spool pipe. Because of blockage provided by the latter, large positive values of the axial velocity are observed near the wall and rel- atively low positive values in the central part of the flow. ‘The mean velocity on the axis, this time, is greater than zero approaching twice the bulk velocity value at xx=-25 mm, The rms velocity values in the spool pipe are higher than in the downstream pipe and decay there- after in the downstream direction, The swirl mean velocities with their corresponding ‘ms values for case 2 are shown in Fig. 7. Large mean swirl velocities exist in the spool pipe with maximum values equal to about 20 times the bulk velocity and a shape significantly different from those which exist in the downstream pipe, The profiles measured at x=-25 mm and x=—38mm are almost identical, It can be seen that the tangential mean velocity distribu- tion is of forced-vortex type in the entire spool pipe. Downstream of the fairing, the mean velocity distrib tion adopts a profile similar to the one in ease 1, sce Fig. 4, ie, forced vortex in a smaller inner region up to IR=02 and thereafter a free-vortex shape. The mean swirl velocity profiles are steeper in case 2 than in case 1, but the strength of the inner core vortex, is still well preserved at x—30 mm. The drastic change in shape of the mean swirl velocity profile in passing from the spool pipe to the dowusts ean pipe resulty because of the elfect of flow divergence encourged by the slopping wall of the fairing, the larger diameter of the downe stream pipe and the blockage provided by the bubble. RR Fig. 7, Swit velocity, mean and rms, case 2Le ‘The implication for a fluid particle originating from the spool pipe isa reduction of the mean swirl velocity in the outer diverging part of the flow in the downstream pipe by virtue of conservation of angular momentum, The corresponding rms velocities in the spool pipe have a maximum near the pipe wall and decay downstream of the fairing, to reach similar levels as in case | ‘The mean and rms values of the radial velocity are shown in Fig. 8. The mean velocity is important in the spool pipe, because of the close proximity of the outlet of the swirler, where its positive maximum is up to four times the bulk velocity at a radial position of r/R=0.8 and then decays downstream, Examination of the level of the rms velocity compo- nents in the axial, tangential and radial directions, as shown in Figs. 3-5, reveals the existence of an anisotro- pic turbulent field especially in the inner region of the flow up to 7/R=0.4. This is usually the case with strong- ly swirling flows and implies for the calculation of such flows the use of a turbulence model that can mimic the presence of anisotropy in the turbulent field. Profiles of the mean and rms values of three compo- nents of velocity in the exit plane represented by the an- nnular space between the baffle and tube wall are presented in Fig. 9 for case 1. The same profiles within experimental errors were measured for ease 2. It can be scen that the flow is predominantly in the down- stream direction with a uniform swirl velocity distribu- tion of the tangential component in the annular space between the baffle and the wall of the pipe. The boun- dary values of velvcity ate thus given in sulfiient detail to be used in numerical simulation exercises. ' ¢ os - i é we 1 0 4 2 39 4 6 os . “ 2 x 08 & * - yi Eos , ¢ ao 02 aa amas ae ° ° 1 fam? 4 5 Fig. 8, Radi velocity, mean and rms, cs ar | Experimenval Thermal and Fail Science 16 (1998) 230-236 40 30 20 10 0 (mm) 0 1 2 3 20 10 (mm) - WiUb = wiv Wwiub 40 ge 30 | 20 vive at © vie ram) o 05 14 15 2 VwiUb 9, Velocity distribution at exit pane Evidently, isothermal swirling flows have been and are still being investigated and although much progress has been achieved, many of their features remain poorly understood. For example, questions on what governs the presence of an on-axis or an off-axis recirculating bubble and its spatial extent cannot be easily answered, Tis also known that such flows remain difficult to pre- dict in all their details (see (11,16). The practical significance of the present work ean be discussed under the above two comments. First, data is presented that describes the velocity field generated by a typical model swirler of industrial relevance. Second, most of the previous work on the numerical simulation Of swirling flows made use of inlet boundary conditions, located downstream of the swirler, in axisymmetric ge- ‘ometries, The present configuration allows the computa- tions to be performed with inlet boundary conditions prior to entering the swirler and thus the solution do- tnain would include the swirler. Although, itis generally accepted that predictions can be sensitive to the location at which computations are initiated. Nonetheless, from 4 practical point of view, this represents a viable prac-236 I. Khezzar| Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 16 (1998) 240-286 tice, since in general, detailed inlet conditions will not be available. It is therefore hoped, that such an exercise should permit assessment of the extent to which reliable flow predictions in the absence of combustion, including. the swirler in the solution domain, can be obtained. 5. Conclusions The present work investigated a turbulent confined swirling flow in the near field of a model radial swirler with two different geometrical configurations. A combi- nation of an off-axis recirculation zone with low positive mean velocities on the axis of the tube was observed in both configurations of cases 1 and 2. The resulting com- plex flowiield contained a pair of counter-rotating vor- tices with relatively high turbulence intensity but low mean velocities inside the inner core. The swirl velocity profiles revealed a forced vortex in the inner region, and a free vortex in the outer one, The strength of the forced vortex was maintained with downstream distance in the measurement region, In case 2, the flow field in the spool pipe assumed a forced-vortex distribution over the centire pipe with high swirl velocities and adopted down- stream a smaller radius inner core than in case 1, The profiles of the rms components of the velocity confirm, the anisotropy of the turbulence field especially within, the vortices region ‘The flow is of sub-critical nature and this fact as- sumes particular significance for the location of the out- Iet boundary conditions in calculation exercises However, detailed velocity distributions at the exit plane in the annular space between the baffle and pipe wall, were obtained and can thus be used to set up computa tional models for validation of calculation methods of such flows. ‘Nomenclature A Constant B Constant r Radial position R Downstream pipe radius R Upstream pipe radius Mean axial velocity component Axial rms velocity component U, Bulk velocity V’ Mean radiai velocity component v Radial rms velocity component W Mean swirl velocity component Swirl ms velocity component x Axial position Acknowledgements ‘This work was carried at Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine while the author was a visit- ing researcher. Financial support provided by the DTT is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks go to Professor JH. Whitelaw of Imperial College, London and Mr. Roy Norster of European Gas Turbines Ltd., for useful discussions References 1] RM, So, A. Abmed, H.C. Mongia, Jet characteristics in confined swising low, Experiment ia Fluids 8 (1985) 221-230, [2] MA. Habib, FH. Whitelaw, Velocity characteristics of conned coaxial jte with and without swirl, J. Fluide Engineering 102 (980) 47-53, 8] BT. Vu, FC. Gouldis, Flow measurements in 4 model swish combustor, AIAA Journal 20 (5) (1982) 642-65; 1. Altgeld, W.P. Jones, J. Wilbelmi, Velocity measurements in a conlined swirl driven fecireulating flow, Experiments in Fluide (983) 73-78, 15] DL. Rhode, D.G. Liley, D.K. Meaughlia, Mean flowelds in ‘xisymmetric combustor geometies with swirl, ALAA Journal 21 (4) 1983) 593-600, (6] MP. Bseuider, J, Keller, Reviteulation in ewiling ow: A. ranifestation of vortex breakdown, ALAA Toul 23 (1) (1985) m6, TAS. Nejad, SP. 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