Numerical and experimental study of a homogenizer impinging jet

High-pressure homogenization is a key unit operation used to disrupt cells containing intracellular bioproducts. Modeling and optimization of this unit are restrained by a lack of information on the flow conditions within a homogenizer value. A numerical investigation of the impinging radial jet within a homogenizer value is presented. Results for a laminar and turbulent (k-epsilon turbulent model) jet are obtained using the PHOENICS finite-volume code. Experimental measurement of the stagnation region width and correlation of the cell disruption efficiency with jet stagnation pressure both indicate that the impinging jet in the homogenizer system examined is likely to be laminar under normal operating conditions. Correlation of disruption data with laminar stagnation pressure provides a better description of experimental variability than existing correlations using total pressure drop or the grouping 1/Y(2)h(2).

Investigation of the flow field of a highly heated jet of air

Measurements of mean and fluctuating velocity and temperature and their self- and cross-products to the third-order are presented for a heated axisymmetric air jet. Froude numbers in the range of 3500 13,190, Reynolds numbers in the range of 3470-8500 and non-dimensional streamwise distances. X*, from 0.27 to 1.98 are covered by the data. It was found that turbulence intensity decreases for the heated jet in the region between the inertia dominated and the buoyancy dominated regions which is contrary to findings with helium jets mixing with ambient air to produce density fluctuations. The effects of heating on the turbulent kinetic energy budget and the temperature variance budget show small differences for the inertia dominated region and the intermediate region which help to explain the transition process to the far field plume region. Constants are evaluated for the isotropic eddy diffusivity and generalised gradient hypothesis models as well as the scalar variance model. No significant effect of heating on the dissipation time-scale ratio was found. A novel wire array with an inclined cold wire was used. Measurements obtained with this probe are found to lead to asymmetries in some of the higher-order products. Further investigation suggested that the asymmetries are attributable to an as yet unreported interference effect produced by the leading prong of the inclined temperature wire, The effect may also have implications for inclined velocity wires which contain a temperature component when used in heated flows. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Effect of cold wire inclination on temperature fluctuation measurements in a heated jet

Hot-wire anemometers at low operating currents are used as fast response resistance thermometers for the study of heated turbulent flows. Simultaneous measurement of temperature and velocity is generally performed with multi-wire arrays. In order to give good spatial resolution a new layout has been tested which uses an inclined temperature wire positioned parallel to the nearest inclined velocity wire. This leads to an asymmetric wire arrangement relative to the mean flow direction. As expected, a reduction in thermal interference from the velocity wires results when compared with an array containing a temperature wire placed normal to the flow. However, measurement of higher order moments of fluctuating quantities in an axisymmetric jet shows considerable distortion of radial distributions which is traced to alteration of the temperature field sensed by the temperature wire. When inclined velocity sensitive wires contain a temperature component, the latter may be affected by the same phenomenon.

Capillary jet instability under the influence of gravity

The focus of this paper is on the effect of gravity stretching on disturbed capillary jet instability. Break-up and droplet formation under low flows are simulated using finite difference solution of a one-dimensional approximation of disturbed capillary jet instability chosen from the work by Eggers and Dupont (J. Fluid Mech. 155 (1994) 289). Experiments were conducted using water and aqueous glycerol solutions to compare with simulations. We use a gravity parameter, G, which quantifies gravity stretching by relating flow velocity, orifice size and acceleration and is the reciprocal of the Fronde number. The optimum disturbance frequency Omega(opt) was found to be inversely proportional to G. However, this relationship appears to be complex for the range of G's investigated. At low G, the relationship between Omega(opt) and G appears to be linear but takes on a weakly decaying like trend as G increases. As flows are lowered, the satellite-free regime decreases, although experimental observation found that merging of main and satellite drops sometimes offset this effect to result in monodispersed droplet trains post break-up. Viscosity did not significantly affect the relationship between the disturbance frequency and G, although satellite drops could be seen more clearly close to the upper limit for instability at high G's. It is possible to define regimes of satellite formation under low flows by considering local wavenumbers at the point of instability. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of initial disturbance amplitude in gravity affected jet break-up

The initial disturbance amplitude has an effect on stretching jets that is not observed for capillary jet instability where gravitational acceleration is not significant. For inviscid and viscous fluids, gravity diminishes the effect that the initial amplitude has on jet length and its ability to prevent satellite formation. In stretching jets, not only the dimensionless frequency of the disturbance but also its initial amplitude must be known to properly study their satellite forming nature. Indirect methods of relating the applied disturbance energy to an initial velocity perturbation are not simple when the gravity parameter G is changing. When G A 0, the optimum disturbance frequency Omega(opt) and the initial disturbance amplitude are related, with Omega(opt) proportional to f (G) x In(1 /epsilon(nu)). Results from numerical simulations and experiments are presented here. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An experimental study of the jet of a boat propeller

An experimental study of the velocity and concentration (scalar) fields of a propeller is presented. Field and laboratory measurements were undertaken. The former were up to 50 diameters downstream. Important findings were that the mean velocity and scalar fields quickly become Gaussian while further downstream they both become irregular sometimes approaching approximately linear profiles. Propeller turbulence causes rapid mixing giving an initial concentration dilution factor of 1/20,000 after fifty propeller diameters. Some preliminary comparisons with field measurements of an actual boat in a natural waterway are made. Considerably more work is needed to gain a full understanding of the complex problem of propeller mixing.

Free-Surface Aeration and Momentum Exchange at a Bottom Outlet

This study aims to provide some new understanding of the air-water flow properties in high-velocity water jets discharging past an abrupt drop. Such a setup has been little studied to date despite the relevance to bottom outlets. Downstream of the step brink, the free-jet entrains air at both upper and lower air-water interfaces, as well as along the sides. An air-water shear layer develops at the lower nappe interface. At the lower nappe, the velocity redistribution was successfully modelled and the velocity field was found to be similar to that in two-dimensional wake flow. The results highlighted further two distinct flow regions. Close to the brink (Wex < 5000), the flow was dominated by momentum transfer. Further downstream (Wex > 5000), a strong competition between air bubble diffusion and momentum exchanges took place.

Turbulence in Hydraulic Jumps: Experimental Measurements

A hydraulic jump is the transition from a supercritical open channel flow to a subcritical regime. It is characterised by a highly turbulent flow with macro-scale vortices, some kinetic energy dissipation and a bubbly two-phase flow structure. New air-water flow measurements were performed in hydraulic jump flows for a range of inflow Froude numbers. The experiments were conducted in a large-size facility using two types of phase-detection intrusive probes: i.e., single-tip and double-tip conductivity probes. These were complemented by some measurements of free-surface fluctuations using ultrasonic displacement meters. The present study was focused on the turbulence characteristics of hydraulic jumps with partially-developed inflow conditions. The void fraction measurements showed the presence of an advective diffusion shear layer in which the void fractions profiles matched closely an analytical solution of the advective diffusion equation for air bubbles. The present results highlighted some influence of the inflow Froude number onto the air bubble entrainment process. At the largest Froude numbers, the advected air bubbles were more thoroughly dispersed vertically, and larger amount of air bubbles were detected in the turbulent shear layer. In the air-water mixing layer, the maximum void fraction and bubble count rate data showed some longitudinal decay function in the flow direction. Such trends were previously reported in the literature. The measurements of interfacial velocity and turbulence level distributions provided new information on the turbulent velocity field in the highly-aerated shear region. The present data suggested some longitudinal decay of the turbulence intensity. The velocity profiles tended to follow a wall jet flow pattern. The air–water turbulent time and length scales were deduced from some auto- and cross-correlation analyses based upon the method of CHANSON (2006,2007). The results provided the integral turbulent time and length scales of the eddy structures advecting the air bubbles in the developing shear layer. The experimental data showed that the auto-correlation time scale Txx was larger than the transverse cross-correlation time scale Txz. The integral turbulence length scale Lxz was a function of the inflow conditions, of the streamwise position (x-x1)/d1 and vertical elevation y/d1. Herein the dimensionless integral turbulent length scale Lxz/d1 was closely related to the inflow depth: i.e., Lxz/d1 = 0.2 to 0.8, with Lxz increasing towards the free-surface. The free-surface fluctuations measurements showed large turbulent fluctuations that reflected the dynamic, unsteady structure of the hydraulic jumps. A linear relationship was found between the normalized maximum free-surface fluctuation and the inflow Froude number.