Experimental and numerical investigations of a turbulent round jet into a cavity

Turbulent flows of submerged jets into cavities are often found in technical applications. These flows tend to exhibit an oscillating behavior of large coherent structures, even in the case of steady-state boundary conditions. The paper studies basic features of a submerged jet which is injected in a cuboid volume. The flow is investigated both experimentally and numerically. The numerical simulations are based on the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations (URANS approach). Common two-equation and Reynolds stress turbulence models are employed in the simulations, respectively. Mean flow fields, long-term coherent flow oscillations and flow turbulence are examined. It is found, that the results of the numerical simulations are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data. However, only numerical simulations with the Reynolds stress turbulence model resolve the long-term flow oscillations correctly. Anisotropy invariant mapping of the turbulence data from the simulations is employed in order to enlighten these findings. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.