Evolution of a confined turbulent jet in a long cylindrical cavity: Homogeneous fluids

Abstract

The flow induced in a long cylinder by an axially discharging round turbulent jet was investigated experimentally with applications to crude oil storage in the U.S. strategic petroleum reserves (SPR). It was found that the flow does not reach a true steady state, but vacillates periodically. Digital video recordings and particle imagevelocimetry were used to map the flow structures and velocity/vorticity fields, from which the frequency of jet switching, jet stopping distance, mean flow,turbulence characteristics, and the influence of end-wall boundary conditions were inferred. The results were parameterized using the characteristic length D and velocity J 1/2 /D scales based on the jet kinematic momentum flux J and cylinder width D. The scaling laws so developed could be used to extrapolate laboratory observations to SPR flows