Simulations of Spatially Developing Two-Dimensional Shear Layers and Jets

A computational study of spatially evolving two-dimensional free shear flows has been performed using direct numerical simulation of the Navier–Stokes equations in order to investigate the ability of these two-dimensional simulations to predict the overall flow-field quantities of the corresponding three-dimensional “real” turbulent flows. The effects of inflow forcing on these two-dimensional flows has also been studied. Simulations were performed of shear layers, as well as weak (large co-flow and relatively weak shear) and strong (small co-flow and relatively strong shear) jets. Several combinations of discrete forcing with and without a broadband background spectrum were used. Although spatially evolving direct simulations of shear layers have been performed in the past, no such simulations of the plane jet have been performed to the best of our knowledge. It was found that, in the two-dimensional shear layers, external forcing led to a strong increase in the initial growth of the shear-layer thickness, followed by a region of decreased growth as in physical experiments. The final downstream growth rate was essentially unaffected by forcing. The mean velocity profile and the naturally evolving growth rate of the shear layer in the case of broadband forcing compare well with experimental data. However, the total and transverse fluctuation intensities are larger in the two-dimensional simulations with respect to experimental data. In the weak-jet simulations it was found that symmetric forcing completely overwhelms the natural tendency to transition to the asymmetric jet column mode downstream. It was observed that two-dimensional simulations of “strong” jets with a low speed co-flow led to a fundamentally different flow with large differences even in mean velocity profiles with respect to experimental data for planar jets. This was a result of the dominance of the two-dimensional mechanism of vortex dipole ejection in the flow due to the lack of spanwise instabilities. Experimental studies of planar jets do not show vortex dipole formation and ejection. A three-dimensional “strong”-jet simulation showed the rapid evolution of three-dimensionality effectively preventing this two-dimensional mechanism, as expected from experimental results. Received: 25 November 1996 and accepted 17 April 1997