Identification and analysis of coherent structures in the near field of a turbulent unconfined annular swirling jet using large eddy simulation

Large eddy simulations of incompressible turbulent flow in an unconfined annular swirling jet at Reynolds number 81500 are reported, based on the outer radius of the jet. The results are in excellent agreement with experimental data for mean flow, turbulent statistics, and power spectral densities of velocity fluctuations. Two dominant families of large-scale coherent structures are identified in the flow. Both are orthogonal to the mean three-dimensional streamlines, which suggests that they are formed as the result of a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Instantaneous vortex structures as well as different types of spectra and two-point correlations are presented to further elucidate the properties of the flow. (C) 2006 American Institute of Physics.