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Measurements of the Statistical Distribution of the Scalar Dissipation Rate in Turbulent Axisymmetric Plumes

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Abstract

In this paper we reconsider the high resolution Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) mixing measurements that were presented in Markides and Mastorakos (Chem. Eng. Sci. 61:2835–2842, 2006). The PLIF experiments were performed in flows created by the continuous injection, with various velocity ratios, of a passive scalar (acetone) from a finite sized round nozzle, into uniform turbulent co-flows confined within a cylindrical tube with a range of turbulent Reynolds numbers. Here, we extend our study of these flows to include an investigation of the Probability Density Functions (PDFs) of the scalar dissipation rate (χ), as well as of the scalar dissipation rate conditional on mixture fraction (χ|ξ). To this effect, we have further processed the resulting data from the earlier work, including an additional correction for density variations in the flow. The results were then reprocessed for the accurate recovery of the spatial gradients of the normalized scalar concentration (ξ), which resulted in direct measurements of χ. All results that are presented in this paper involve the two-dimensional scalar dissipation rate (χ 2D ) evaluated in the plane of imaging, and furthermore, results are only shown and discussed along the centreline of our axisymmetric configuration. The PDFs of χ were calculated and found to deviate slightly from a lognormal distribution, consistent with other published work. Moreover, the PDFs of χ|ξ followed a similar distribution, and showed a similar deviation. This deviation was more pronounced closer to the source and decayed downstream. The ratio of the standard deviation over the mean of χ and χ|ξ increased with streamwise distance and reached values of 2.8 and 1.2 respectively.

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  1. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK

    C. N. Markides & E. Mastorakos

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  1. C. N. Markides
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  2. E. Mastorakos
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Correspondence to C. N. Markides.

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Markides, C.N., Mastorakos, E. Measurements of the Statistical Distribution of the Scalar Dissipation Rate in Turbulent Axisymmetric Plumes. Flow Turbulence Combust 81, 221–234 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-007-9115-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-007-9115-1

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