Experimental investigation of a plane wall jet subjected to an external lateral flow

The present work aims to experimentally investigate the aerodynamic behavior of a wall jet subjected to external lateral stream by means of time-resolved PIV measurement technique. The experiments are performed on a reduced-scale model representing a generic configuration of a refrigerated display cabinet by focusing on the near-field region (x/e < 10) where strong interactions are expected between the jet core, wall boundary and external lateral stream. Comparisons of experimental data obtained with and without external perturbation make it possible to quantify the effect of the perturbation on the time-averaged wall jet characteristics such as airflow patterns, velocity profiles, maximum velocity decay, half-width jet growth, jet entrainment, RMS velocities and coherent structures as well as those related to the development of instabilities. Temporal PIV visualizations have allowed gaining insight on the effect of external lateral perturbation at the outer edge of the jet on the topology of Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices that dominate the early stages of wall jet transition process and play a relevant role on the jet entrainment inwards. Special attention was paid to bring new knowledge of the flow physics related to mutual interactions between outer and inner layer of the wall jet after the break-up of vortex filaments in the braid region due to the external perturbation.