Swirling Boundary Layer in Conical Diffuser

Experiments by Clausen et al.

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Description

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Swirling boundary layer developing in a conical diffuser. The conical diffuser is placed 100 mm downstream of a rotating swirl generator of diameter D=260 mm and discharges into the atmosphere at X=510 mm. It has a 20o included angle and an area ratio of 2.84.

Flow Characteristics

The swirling flow is created by a rotating cylinder including a honeycomb screen at its inlet. At its outlet, the inlet swirl is close to solid-body rotation. Along the diffuser, the swirl is of sufficient magnitude to prevent boundary layer separation but just insufficient to cause recirculation in the core flow. The axial pressure gradient and the curvature of the streamlines have been found to be the dominant perturbations imposed to the swirling boundary layer as it exits the cylindrical part and enters the conical diffuser. The swirl is responsible for severe radial gradients near the wall for most of the turbulence quantities.

Flow Parameters

Inflow Conditions

The following measurements are provided at station -25, located at x = -25 mm, 75 mm downstream of the swirl generator and 25 mm upstream of the diffuser entrance. The swirl is close to solid-body rotation with a nearly uniform axial velocity in the core region outside the boundary layers. The swirl number is Wmax/Uo = 0.59 where Wmax is the maximal circumferential velocity. The wall shear stress is tauwx/Uo2 = 0.00282 in the x direction and tauwz/Uo2 = 0.00190 in the z direction. The wall streamline angle is betaw = tan-1(W/U)y=0 = 34o.

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Experimental Details

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Available Measurements

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Previous Numerical Studies

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Main references

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