Near-field flow structures and sideband instabilities of an initially laminar plane jet

The intrinsic characteristics of coherent structures in the near field of a plane jet are extensively studied by hot-wire measurements. The instability modes which are responsible for the dynamics of the coherent structures are found to exhibit distinct evolution characters at different transverse positions of the shear layer along downstream direction. The occurrence of multiple peaks in the energy spectra depicts the formation of the sideband instabilities in the early stage of the jet flow field. These sideband instabilities are investigated to be induced by the mechanisms of the nonlinear interactions between neighboring fundamental and subharmonic instabilities, and the feedback effects of the preferred mode near the end of the potential core. Also, from the spatial distributions of the instability modes over the jet flow field, Ho's subharmonic evolution model (1982) is further examined with more interpretations.List of symbols E (f) energy content of streamwise velocity fluctuation at spe cific frequency - f _e excitation frequency - f ₀ fundamental frequency - f _p preferred frequency - f _r response frequency in an excited jet - H height of the plane jet at the exit - U streamwise mean velocity - U ₀ mean velocity at the nozzle exit - U _c mean velocity at the jet center line - u streamwise RMS velocity fluctuation - u _p peak streamwise velocity fluctuation alongY axis - u (f) amplitude of streamwise velocity fluctuation at specific frequency - X, Y streamwise and transverse coordinates - Y _a transverse position whereU = aU _c ,a = 0.99, 0.9,..., etc. - Y _c transverse position at the jet center line - ₀ initial instability wave length (=U ₀/2f ₀) - 0 momentum thickness - ₀ initial boundary layer momentum thickness A version of this paper was presented at the 11th Symposium on Turbulence, University of Missouri-Rolla, Oct. 17–19, 1988