Identification and analysis of the meandering of a fin-tip vortex using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD)

The meandering of a vortex exists in a broad range of engineering applications and can lead to flow instability and other undesirable characteristics. Compared to a static vortex, measurement of a meandering vortex can result in a ‘smeared’ mean-flow field and increased levels of turbulence at the centre of the vortex. A case study was performed here on the meandering nature of a fin-tip vortex generated by a manoeuvring submarine. From stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) measurements, it is possible to remove the meandering by shifting each instantaneous velocity field so as to produce a common centre for the vortex. In this paper, a snapshot Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) technique is used to capture the dominant large-scale coherent structures (from inspection of eigenvalue or energy distributions) and to improve vortex centre identification. The POD reconstructed velocity field using only the most energetic modes enabled the coherent structures of the flow to be clearly visualised, providing improved identification of the vortex centre and subsequent evaluation of the meandering effect on the turbulent statistics. The present findings suggest that the vortex meandering only has a small impact on the ensemble-averaged resultant velocity, while contributing up to a maximum of 28% for the fluctuating component. The meandering correction also leads to an overall decrease of turbulence intensity in the peak fluctuating region of the vortex core.     

PIV study of large-scale flow organisation in slot jets

The paper reports on particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements in turbulent slot jets bounded by two solid walls with the separation distance smaller than the jet width (5–40%). In the far-field such jets are known to manifest features of quasi-two dimensional, two component turbulence. Stereoscopic and tomographic PIV systems were used to analyse local flows. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) was applied to extract coherent modes of the velocity fluctuations. The measurements were performed both in the initial region close to the nozzle exit and in the far fields of the developed turbulent slot jets for Re ⩾ 10,000. A POD analysis in the initial region indicates a correlation between quasi-2D vortices rolled-up in the shear layer and local flows in cross-stream planes. While the near-field turbulence shows full 3D features, the wall-normal velocity fluctuations day out gradually due to strong wall-damping resulting in an almost two-component turbulence. On the other hand, the longitudinal vortex rolls take over to act as the main agents in wall-normal and spanwise mixing and momentum transfer. The quantitative analysis indicates that the jet meandering amplitude was aperiodically modulated when arrangement of the large-scale quasi-2D vortices changed between asymmetric and symmetric pattern relatively to the jet axis. The paper shows that the dynamics of turbulent slot jets are more complex than those of 2D, plane and rectangular 3D jets. In particular, the detected secondary longitudinal vortex filaments and meandering modulation is expected to be important for turbulent transport and mixing in slot jets. This issue requires further investigations.     

Three-dimensional flow structure in highly buoyant jet by scanning stereo PIV combined with POD analysis

The flow characteristics and the structure of highly buoyant jet of low density fluid issuing into a stagnant surrounding of high density fluid is studied by scanning stereo PIV combined with proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis. The experiment is carried out at Froude number of 0.3 and Reynolds number of 200, which satisfies the inflow condition due to the unstable density gradient near the nozzle exit. An increase in the maximum mean velocity occurs and the vertical velocity fluctuation is highly amplified near the nozzle exit, which suggests the influence of inflow due to the unstable density gradient. The POD analysis indicates that the vertical velocity fluctuation is the major source of fluctuating energy contributing to the development of the highly buoyant jet. The examination of the POD modes show that the longitudinal structure of the vertical velocity fluctuation is generated along the jet axis having the opposite sign of velocity fluctuation on both sides of the jet axis. The vertical scale of the POD mode decreases with increasing the mode number and results in the frequent appearance of cross-flow across the buoyant jet. The reconstruction flow from the POD modes indicates that the vortex structure is caused by the highly sheared layer between the upward and downward velocity and the inflow is induced by the vortex structure. The magnitude of the vortex structure seems to be weakened with an increase in the distance from the nozzle and the buoyant jet approaches to an asymptotic state in the further downstream.     

Coherent structures and wavepackets in subsonic transitional turbulent jets

A large eddy simulation (LES) is performed for two subsonic jets with a Reynolds number of Re = 105, which have different core temperatures, i.e., the cold and hot jet. The far-field overall sound pressure levels (OASPL) and noise spectra are well validated against previous exper-imental results. It is found that the OASPL is raised by heating at shallow angles. The most energetic coherent struc-tures are extracted with specified frequencies using the filter based on the frequency domain variant of the snapshot method of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The m = 0, 1 modes have high coherence of near-field pres-sure for both jets, while the coherence of m = 0 modes is enhanced greatly by heating. Based on the coherent struc-tures, spatial wavepackets are educed and the characteristics of growth, saturation and decay are analyzed and compared between the two jets in detail. The results show that heat-ing would enhance the linear growth rate for high frequency components, and nonlinear growth rates for low frequency components in general, which are responsible for higher OASPL in the hot jet. The far-field sound generated by wavepackets is computed using the Kirchhoff extrapolation, which matches well with that of LES at shallow angles. This indicates that the wavepackets associated with coherent structures are dominant sound sources in forced transitional turbulent jets. Additionally, the present POD method is proven to be a robust tool to extract the salient features of the wavepackets in turbulent flows.     

Visualization of coherent structure in scalar fields of unsteady jet flows with interferometric tomography and proper orthogonal decomposition

Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is a method of examining spatial coherence in unsteady flow fields from an ensemble of multidimensional measurements. When applied to experimental data, the proper orthogonal decomposition is generally restricted to data sets with low spatial resolution. This is because of the inherent difficulties in generating an ensemble of measurements that contain a large number of data points. In this paper, a system for obtaining a large ensemble of three-dimensional scalar measurements using interferometric tomography is presented. The proper orthogonal decomposition is applied in three spatial dimensions to experimental data of two jet-like flows. The coherent structure present in the near field of a neutrally buoyant, helium–argon jet and the far field of a buoyant helium jet into air is visualized. The POD results of the helium–argon jet clearly reveal the breakdown region of a sequence of vortex rings and a large-scale flapping motion in the jet far field. The POD of the buoyant helium jet shows a number of competing modes with varying degrees of helicity. Received: 14 January 2000/Accepted: 26 September 2000     

The ultrasonic velocity profile measurement of flow structure in the near field of a square free jet

 Coherent structures in the near field of a three-dimensional jet have been investigated. Experiments were carried out for a free jet issuing from a square nozzle using a water channel. Instantaneous velocity profiles were obtained in the axial and radial directions by using an ultrasonic velocity profile (UVP) monitor. Axial variations of dominant time-scales of vortex structures were examined from one-dimensional wavelet spectra. Wavenumber-frequency spectra were calculated by two-dimensional Fourier transform along the axial direction in a mixing layer, and it was found that a convective velocity of flow structures was nearly constant independently of their scales in space and time. Coherent structures in the axial direction were investigated in terms of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Eigenfunctions are similar to a sinusoidal wave, and reconstructed velocity fields by the lower-order and higher-order POD modes demonstrate large-scale and smaller-scale coherent structures, respectively. Received: 8 May 2000/Accepted: 23 January 2001 Published online: 29 November 2001     

Extended Proper Orthogonal Decomposition: Application to Jet/Vortex Interaction

The Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) is used in the present work to study the interactions between different regions of a flow. The standard analysis would select structures that are best correlated with the entire fluctuating velocity field. It is therefore not helpful if one flow region S of interest contains only a small percentage of the total kinetic energy. Using POD modes computed in the sub-domain S only, extended modes are introduced using the method of snapshots. We demonstrate that they provide a decomposition of the velocity field in the whole domain and that the extended mode number p provides the only local contribution to the velocity field correlated with the projection of the velocity field on POD mode p in S. This method is general and can be applied to either experimental or numerical velocity fields. As an example, it is applied to the analysis of an internal turbulent flow in a model engine cylinder with tumble. Data are obtained at a given phase with Particle Image Velocimetry. We focus our analysis on the middle of the intake stroke when the energy containing intake jet rolls up to feed a large vortex structure. Preferred directions of the jet/vortex interaction are clearly identified. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Three-dimensional vortex wake structure of a flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle in forward flight configuration

The unsteady flow field past a backward-facing step in a rectangular duct is investigated by adopting time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) in the Reynolds number range of 2,640–9,880 based on step height and the inlet average velocity. The PIV realizations are subjected to post-processing techniques, namely, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). At low Reynolds numbers, the second spatial POD modes indicate the presence of the shear layer mode, whereas this feature shifts to higher modes at higher Reynolds numbers. The corresponding temporal modes are Fourier-transformed to obtain the dominant frequency, whose Strouhal number corroborates the above observation. Short-time windows in the transverse velocity component along the shear layer are selected to investigate the temporal stability of the flow field by DMD to quantify the growth rate of the shear layer mode. The higher harmonics of this mode are also observed to grow, albeit at lesser rate. By relating to POD analysis, the most energetic structures were found to correspond to the unstable modes. The correlation between these unstable DMD modes and the Fourier-filtered flow fields for the same frequencies indicate better match for the lower operating Reynolds number case as compared to higher ones. The spatial stability analysis demonstrates the growth of the shear layer vortices, which is combined with the temporal stability analysis to evaluate the phase velocity of the identified shear layer structures. The calculated phase velocity magnitude of the shear layer is found to be reasonably below the local velocity as expected.     

An investigation of forced structures in turbulent jet flows

In many cases, turbulence is superimposed on an unsteady organized motion of a mean flow. In the past, these turbulent flows have been studied by time or ensemble averaging methods and some decomposition techniques such as proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). In this study, a new decomposition technique called the turbulence filter will be used to decompose the forced turbulent jet flows. By using the turbulence filtering technique, the fluctuating (turbulent) part and the more organized (forced) part of the velocity field are analyzed. Within this context several experiments on organized turbulent jet flow have been carried out. In the experiments, variable frequency and amplitude oscillation are imposed on a 1D jet. An elliptical plate was used in order to obtain sinusoidal forcing. The axial distance, Reynolds number and the forcing frequency of the signal were varied. The multiple hot wires (six probes) were used to investigate the evolution of the signal along the radial distance. The obtained results of the turbulence filter are compared with those of phase-averaging and POD techniques. The eigenmodes of the data are also evaluated by using the POD method. Received: 31 July 1998/Accepted: 19 January 2000     

On the inviscid acoustic-mode instability of supersonic shear flows

The same methods used previously to study acoustic-mode instability in supersonic boundary layers are applied to free shear layers, and new calculations are made for boundary layers with cooling and suction. The objective is to obtain additional information about acoustic-mode instability, and to find what features of the instability are common to boundary layers and free shear flows. Acoustic modes exist whenever there is an embedded region of locally supersonic flow relative to the phase speed of the instability wave. Consequently, they can be found in boundary layers, wakes, and jets, but not in mixing layers unless the flow is confined. In this first part of a two-part paper, attention is directed principally to two-dimensional waves. The linear, inviscid stability theory is used to calculate spatial amplification rates at Mach number 3 for the sinuous and varicose modes of a single wake flow and a single jet flow, each made up of the same mixing-layer profile plus a central region of uniform flow. Along with sequences of sinuous and varicose unstable modes clearly identifiable as acoustic modes, both of these flows, unlike the boundary layer, have a lowest sinuous mode that is the most unstable. The unstable modes include both subsonic and radiating disturbances with large amplification rates. The latter phenomenon is also found for highly cooled boundary layers with suction. In these boundary layers, suction is generally stabilizing for nonradiating acoustic disturbances, but destabilizing for radiating disturbances.The work described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Support from the Aerodynamics Division of the Office of Aeronautics and Exploration Technology is gratefully acknowledged. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Fourth Symposium on Numerical and Physical Aspects of Aerodynamic Flows, California State University, Long Beach, CA, 16–19 January 1989.     

Proper orthogonal decomposition analysis for cycle-to-cycle variations of engine flow. Effect of a control device in an inlet pipe

This paper aims to investigate cycle-to-cycle variations of non-reacting flow inside a motored single-cylinder transparent engine in order to judge the insertion amplitude of a control device able to displace linearly inside the inlet pipe. Three positions corresponding to three insertion amplitudes are implemented to modify the main aerodynamic properties from one cycle to the next. Numerous particle image velocimetry (PIV) two-dimensional velocity fields following cycle database are post-treated to discriminate specific contributions of the fluctuating flow. We performed a multiple snapshot proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) in the tumble plane of a pent roof SI engine. The analytical process consists of a triple decomposition for each instantaneous velocity field into three distinctive parts named mean part, coherent part and turbulent part. The 3rd- and 4th-centered statistical moments of the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD)-filtered velocity field as well as the probability density function of the PIV realizations proved that the POD extracts different behaviors of the flow. Especially, the cyclic variability is assumed to be contained essentially in the coherent part. Thus, the cycle-to-cycle variations of the engine flows might be provided from the corresponding POD temporal coefficients. It has been shown that the in-cylinder aerodynamic dispersions can be adapted and monitored by controlling the insertion depth of the control instrument inside the inlet pipe.     

Spatiotemporal representation of the dynamic modes in turbulent cavity flows

Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) were used to extract the coherent structures in turbulent cavity flows. The spatiotemporal representation of the modes was achieved by performing the circular convolution of a change of basis on the data sequence, wherein the transformation function was extracted from the POD or DMD. The spatiotemporal representation of the modes provided significant insight into the evolutionary behavior of the structures. Self-sustained oscillations arise in turbulent cavity flows due to unsteady separation at the leading edge. The turbulent cavity flow at Re_D = 12,000 and a length to depth ratio L/D = 2 was analyzed. The dynamic modes extracted from the data clarified the presence of self-sustained oscillations. The spatiotemporal representation of the POD and DMD modes that caused self-sustained oscillations revealed the prevalent dynamics and evolutionary behavior of the coherent structures from their formation at the leading edge to their impingement at the trailing edge. A local minimum in the mode amplitude representing the energy contributions to the flow was observed upon the impingement of coherent structure at the trailing edge. The modal energy associated with the periodic formation of organized coherent structures followed by their dissipation upon impingement revealed the oscillatory behavior over time.     

Modeling of Langmuir Circulation: Triple Decomposition of the Craik–Leibovich Model

Turbulent shear flows on shallow continental shelves (here shallow means that the interaction with the solid, no-slip bottom is important) are of great importance because of their role in vertical mixing as well as on the transport of sediment and bioactive material. The presence of a wavefield in these areas can lead to the appearance of Langmuir circulation which is known to strongly affect the dynamics of a turbulent flow. To investigate those dynamical effects within a RANS-type modeling framework, we apply a triple decompostion to the LES results of Langmuir circulation in order to further isolate the coherent structures from fluctuating velocity field. The results are compared to the classical double-decomposition. In contrast to the double-decomposition framework, the triple-decompostion more effectively educes the coherent structure field and quantifies the need to take into account the energy exchange between the coherent and random fluctuations as well as the overall impact of the coherent structures on the turbulence dynamics.     

Applications of the dynamic mode decomposition

The decomposition of experimental data into dynamic modes using a data-based algorithm is applied to Schlieren snapshots of a helium jet and to time-resolved PIV-measurements of an unforced and harmonically forced jet. The algorithm relies on the reconstruction of a low-dimensional inter-snapshot map from the available flow field data. The spectral decomposition of this map results in an eigenvalue and eigenvector representation (referred to as dynamic modes) of the underlying fluid behavior contained in the processed flow fields. This dynamic mode decomposition allows the breakdown of a fluid process into dynamically revelant and coherent structures and thus aids in the characterization and quantification of physical mechanisms in fluid flow.     

Numerical simulation of vortical and coherent structures in compressible jet flows

The compressible flows of plane free jets and jets of the intake-stroke of a rectangular piston-engine model are investigated by numerical simulations. The observed vortical structures appear to be the well-known coherent structures of turbulent shear layers. The simulated structures are compared to experimental data by means of density fields and turbulent statistics taken from different authors. The computed flow depends on physical as well as on numerical parameters. The good agreement with the experimental data is obtained by direct simulation without any turbulence model.     

Simultaneous OH and Schlieren visualization of premixed flames at the lean blow-out limit

The structure of an air-propane premixed flame was studied experimentally at the lean flammability limit, using Schlieren photography synchronized with OH-imaging done with the Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) technique. The flame was studied in a wide range of fuel equivalence ratios. Various steps in the process of the flame destabilization were investigated, including partial lift-off, stable lift-off, and final blow-out conditions. The flame structure was visualized for each stage showing the transition from a flame held at the nozzle to a flame held by the flow structures. In order to study the latter conditions in more detail the flame was acoustically excited at the preferred mode frequency generating large, stable, coherent structures in the core region. The modified flame structure was visualized to understand the interaction between the flame and vortical flow dynamics.It is shown that for the flow conditions when the flame cannot be stabilized at the nozzle, a new anchoring point is reached at the location of the initial vortex roll-up in the jet shear layer. At this point the flow reversal and transition to turbulence produce stagnation points with relatively low local velocities and velocity gradients where the flame can be stabilized. When the flame jet is being forced at the jet most unstable frequency, large coherent structures are formed and the flame is stabilized intermittently on these vortices.     

Analysis of time-resolved PIV measurements of a confined turbulent jet using POD and Koopman modes

We present a comparative analysis of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) computed from experimental data of a turbulent, quasi 2-D, confined jet with co-flow (Re?=?11,500, co-flow ratio inner-to-outer flow ≈2:1). The experimental data come from high-speed 2-D particle image velocimetry. The flow is fully turbulent, and it contains geometry-dependent large-scale coherent structures; thus, it provides an interesting benchmark case for the comparison between POD and DMD. In this work, we address issues related to snapshot selections (1), convergence (2) and the physical interpretation (3) of both POD and DMD modes. We found that the convergence of POD modes follows the criteria of statistical convergence of the autocovariance matrix. For the computation of DMD modes, we suggest a methodology based on two criteria: the analysis of the residuals to optimize the sampling parameters of the snapshots, and a time-shifting procedure that allows us to identify the spurious modes and retain the modes that consistently appear in the spectrum. These modes are found to be the ones with nearly null growth rate. We then present the selected modes, and we discuss the way POD and DMD rank them. POD analysis reveals that the most energetic spatial structures are related to the large-scale oscillation of the inner jet (flapping); from the temporal analysis emerges that these modes are associated with a low-frequency peak at St?=?0.02. At this frequency, DMD identifies a similar mode, where oblique structures from the walls appear together with the flapping mode. The second most energetic group of modes identified is associated with shear-layer oscillations, and to a recirculation zone near the inner jet. Temporal analysis of these modes shows that the flapping of the inner jet might be sustained by the recirculation. In the DMD, the shear-layer modes are separated from the recirculation modes. These have large amplitudes in the DMD. In conclusion, the DMD modes with eigenvalues on the unit circle are found to be similar to the most energetic POD modes, although differences appear due to the fact that DMD isolates structures associated with one frequency only.     

Numerical analysis of turbulent structure in compound meandering open channel by algebraic Reynolds stress model

The turbulent flow in a compound meandering channel with a rectangular cross section is one of the most complicated turbulent flows, because the flow behaviour is influenced by several kinds of forces, including centrifugal forces, pressure‐driven forces and shear stresses generated by momentum transfer between the main channel and the flood plain. Numerical analysis has been performed for the fully developed turbulent flow in a compound meandering open‐channel flow using an algebraic Reynolds stress model. The boundary‐fitted coordinate system is introduced as a method for coordinate transformation in order to set the boundary conditions along the complicated shape of the meandering open channel. The turbulence model consists of transport equations for turbulent energy and dissipation, in conjunction with an algebraic stress model based on the Reynolds stress transport equations. With reference to the pressure–strain term, we have made use of a modified pressure–strain term. The boundary condition of the fluctuating vertical velocity is set to zero not only for the free surface, but also for computational grid points next to the free surface, because experimental results have shown that the fluctuating vertical velocity approaches zero near the free surface. In order to examine the validity of the present numerical method and the turbulent model, the calculated results are compared with experimental data measured by laser Doppler anemometer. In addition, the compound meandering open channel is clarified somewhat based on the calculated results. As a result of the analysis, the present algebraic Reynolds stress model is shown to be able to reasonably predict the turbulent flow in a compound meandering open channel. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On coherent structures and mixing characteristics in the near field of a rotating-pipe jet

Mixing characteristics and coherent structures populating the near-nozzle area of a rotating-pipe jet at the Reynolds number of 5300 were studied by Large-eddy simulation (LES). The swirl rate, defined as the ratio of the tangential velocity of the inner pipe wall to the bulk axial velocity, varied from 0 to 1, corresponding to a weak-to-moderate swirl intensity, insufficient to induce reverse flow near the nozzle. The visualization shows that for the non-swirling jet the near-wall streaky structures generated in the pipe interact with the shear layer, evolving into hairpin-like structures that become tilted at low rotation rates. For higher swirl, they cannot be recognized as they are destroyed at the nozzle exit. No large-scale coherent structures akin to Kelvin–Helmholtz vortical rings in the ‘top-hat’ jets are identifiable close to the nozzle. Using the single and joint probability density functions of velocity and passive scalar (temperature) fields we quantify the events responsible for the intensive entrainment at various swirl numbers. The isosurface of the temperature field indicates the meandering and precessing motion of the rotating jet core at the axial distance of 6D downstream, where D is the diameter of the pipe. The Fourier analysis with respect to the azimuthal angle and time reveals an interplay between the co- and counter-rotating modes. These findings explain the previously detected but not fully clarified phenomenon of the weakly counter-rotating jet core at low swirl rates.