Characteristics of instantaneous intersecting airflow from main nozzle and various relay nozzles in an air jet loom

AbstractDue to the low insertion speed and poor weft motion stability with single round-hole relay nozzle in the air jet loom, this study is aims to investigate the characteristics of transient intersecting airflow from a main nozzle and tri-elliptical hole relay nozzles. The turbulent intersecting airflow was simulated based on a large eddy simulations (LES). The correctness of the LES model was evaluated by comparing the time-averaged axial velocity with experimental and the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) results. The LES simulation has shown that only one potential-core arose its height about 4 mm for single round hole relay nozzle, whereas three potential-core arouse its height about 4 mm for tri-elliptical hole relay nozzles. It is possible to enhance the mean axial velocity of the intersecting airflow by up to 10% and decrease fluctuation magnitude by 25% using a new type of tri-elliptical center array relay nozzle.Keywords: Air jet loomtransient airflow structurerelay nozzlelarge eddy simulation (LES)computational fluid dynamics (CFD) Disclosure statementThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51505344, 11872046), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2014CFB766) and Hubei Digital Textile Equipment Key Laboratory Open Fund (DTL202001).