Abstract: | The paper reports on a numerical study of turbulent confined jets in a conical duct with a 5° divergence. The flow has a large ratio of jet to ambient velocities at the entrance so that it gives rise to strong recirculation. The calculations are carried out with a general finite volume method designed for calculating incompressible elliptic flows with complex boundaries. Turbulence is simulated by the standard κ–? model. The sensitivity of the solution to numerical discretization errors is examined using three convection schemes, i.e. hybrid central/upwind differencing, QUICK and SOUCUP, on two grids consisting of 68 × 50 and 102 × 82 points respectively. An examination is also made of the influence of inlet boundary conditions on the predicted flow field. The computed results are compared with experimental data for mean axial velocity, turbulent shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy profiles. It is shown that the calculations reproduce the essential features of the flow observed in the experiments. |