Impact of an Adjacent Surface on a Rectangular Overexpanded Supersonic Jet

Abstract

Flow and acoustic fields of a rectangular over-expanded supersonic jet interacting with an adjacent parallel plate are investigated using compressible Large Eddy Simulations (LES). The jet exits from a converging diverging rectangular nozzle of aspect ratio 2 with a design Mach number 1.5. Four distances (0 to 3 equivalent diameters) between the plate and the adjacent lip of the rectangular jet in the minor axis plane are studied. The geometry of the nozzle, the positions of the plate, and the exit conditions are identical to the ones of an experimental study. Snapshots and mean velocity fields are presented. Good agreement with the PIV experimental measurements is obtained. Previously, the corresponding free jet has been found to undergo a strong flapping motion in the minor axis plane due to screech. Here, it is shown that the intensity of the screech increases for certain distances from the plate and decreases for others, as compared to the corresponding free jet. Two points space-time cross correlations of the pressure along the jet’s shear-layers show, in two cases, an amplification of the aeroacoustic feedback mechanism leading to screech noise in the jet shear-layer closer to the plate. This amplification is due to acoustic waves impinging on the plate, and generating propagating waves back towards the jet, thus exciting the shear-layer at the screech frequency, around the tenth shock cell. Moreover, when the jet develops as a wall jet on the plate, the screech frequency and its associated flapping motion is canceled but a symmetrical oscillation of the jet at a lower frequency becomes dominant and radiates in the near acoustic field. This oscillation mode, as the ones associated with the screech tones for the other cases studied, can be explained by the use of a vortex sheet model of the ideally expanded equivalent planar jet.