Investigation of turbulent flows in a waterjet intake duct using stereoscopic PIV measurements

Stereoscopic particle image velocimetry measurements were made in a wind tunnel using a prototype waterjet model. The main wind tunnel provided the vehicle velocity and a secondary wind tunnel was set up as the waterjet propulsion model. Pressure distributions along the ramp and lip sides inside the duct were measured for three jet velocity to vehicle velocity ratios. Three-dimensional velocity fields were obtained at the intake entrance and the nozzle exit of the waterjet system. The flow into the duct was faster in the lip region than on the ramp side. Because of the variation in intake geometry from a rectangular to a circular section and because of the sudden curvature change on the lip side, a pair of counter-rotating vortices was observed in the mean velocity field at the nozzle exit. In addition, the turbulent kinetic energy correlated with the vortex pair was stronger on the lip side than in other areas. Dominant large-scale structures were extracted by using a snapshot proper orthogonal decomposition analysis. It was found that most of the turbulent kinetic energy was attributed to at least three vortices near the nozzle exit. This detailed three-dimensional velocity field will be useful for the verification of CFD simulations applied to the waterjet system.