Pressure fluctuations and heating of a gas by the inflow of a supersonic jet into a cylindrical cavity

The formation of pressure fluctuations at the inflow of a jet into a cavity (or the so-called resonance tube) was first observed by Hartmann. Further investigations showed that at the same time there is a heating of the gas in the cavity [1, 2]. It was established in [1, 2] that at subsonic and slightly supersonic velocities (M < 2.0) the cavity air can be heated up to 500–700 °K. Further investigations [4, 6] showed that by using monatomic gases inside the cavity one can reach even higher temperatures (T 800–900 °K). The resonance tubes find an application as powerful sound sources. There is also a possibility of their use in thermochemistry, and for the plasma production [6], In the literature, there is an absence of data on the resonance tube characteristics for large Mach numbers. In the present work we investigate the resonance tubes for M = 3.2–4.0. These investigations have shown that pressure oscillations can occur at these Mach numbers with the peak-to-peak amplitude of P 0.4·P_o, where P_o is the total pressure in the inflowing jet. Depending on the clearance between the nozzle and the cavity, both low- and high-frequency oscillations can be set up. It is established that the most intense shock-wave heating of the gas takes place at high-frequency fluctuations, although their amplitude is smaller in comparison with the low-frequency ones. It is shown that the cold air inside the cavity can be heated by means of the fluctuations up to T 1600 °K or more.Translated from Izvestiya Akamemii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 104–111, September–October, 1977.