1. Introduction
Turbulent thermal jets have many engineering applications which include propulsion in aircraft and boiler furnaces [
1] and heating and drying of surfaces [
2]. In this paper, Lie symmetry methods and conservation laws for partial differential equations will be applied to investigate the two-dimensional turbulent thermal jet.
Over the decades, numerical [
3,
4], analytical [
5,
6,
7] and experimental studies have been carried out [
8,
9,
10]. Howarth [
5] gave an analytical treatment to the two-dimensional and axisymmetric turbulent thermal free jets using Prandtl mixing lengths to model the eddy viscosity and eddy thermal conductivity. He showed using a similarity argument that the mixing lengths are proportional to the distance from the nozzle along the centre line of the jet. He also showed that the temperature distribution is similar to the velocity distribution. Hinze and Van der Heggezijnen [
10] compared the analytical results of Howarth [
5] with experimental data. Sforza and Mons [
8] presented analytical and experimental investigations of mass, momentum and thermal transfer of a radial turbulent thermal free jet. The authors used an extension by Baron and Alexander [
6] of Reichardt’s inductive theory of turbulence [
7] to close the Reynolds averaged equations. They compared their analytical results with experimental data. The analytical results derived in [
5,
8] neglect the kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity. This is a reasonable physical assumption since the eddy viscosity and eddy thermal conductivity are large compared to the kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity.
In this paper, the turbulence will be described by an eddy viscosity in the Reynolds averaged momentum balance equation and by an eddy thermal conductivity in the averaged energy balance equation. The eddy viscosity is described by Prandtl’s mixing length model and the eddy conductivity is modelled using a thermal mixing length. We assume the momentum and thermal mixing lengths are functions only of the distance from the nozzle along the centre line of the jet. The form of the functions will be determined by the invariance condition that the system of partial differential equations describing the turbulent thermal jet admit a Lie point symmetry. In general a jet is laminar in a short region close to the nozzle, but is turbulent further downstream. In the fully developed region, a turbulent model is required.
When expressed in terms of the stream function the two-dimensional turbulent thermal free jet is described by a coupled system of two partial differential equations. An invariant solution will be investigated by using conservation laws and Lie group analysis for partial differential equations. Several methods can be used to derive conservation laws for partial differential Equations [
11]. We will use the multiplier method. The homogeneous boundary conditions of a jet are not sufficient to determine the invariant solution. Conserved quantities are needed which are obtained by integrating conservation laws across the jet and using the boundary conditions. For each conservation law there is a conserved vector. The Lie point symmetry associated with the conserved vector is derived by using a result due to Kara and Mahomed [
12,
13]. The order of the prolongation required in the derivation of an associated Lie point symmetry is one less than when the full Lie point symmetry is derived. The system of two partial differential equations for the turbulent thermal free jet is reduced to a system of two ordinary differential equations. When the reduction is performed by an associated Lie point symmetry the ordinary differential equations can be integrated at least once by the double reduction theorem of Sjoberg [
14,
15].
This approach to the derivation of an invariant solution was taken by Mason and Hill [
16] who considered an axisymmetric turbulent jet described by an eddy viscosity which depends only on position. It was also applied by Magan et al. [
17,
18] to the two-dimensional free jet and liquid jet of a non-Newtonian power law fluid and by Hutchinson [
19] to the turbulent far wake with variable mainstream flow. A new feature of the problem is the system of two coupled partial differential equations and two mixing lengths, Prandtl’s mixing length and the thermal mixing length.
Although the kinematic viscosity, , and the thermal conductivity, , are small compared with the eddy kinematic viscosity, , and the eddy thermal conductivity, , in a real fluid they are non-zero and can play a significant part in the mathematical solution. We will consider two cases:
- (i)
and are neglected, and ,
- (ii)
and are retained, and .
When
and
it is found that the associated Lie point symmetry and mixing lengths are fully determined. When
and
a further equation is needed to determine completely the associated Lie point symmetry. We will use for this condition Prandtl’s hypothesis [
20] that the mixing length is proportional to the breadth of the jet.
When
and
we solve the reduced ordinary differential equations numerically. A shooting method is used to convert the boundary value problem to an initial value problem [
21]. The two conserved quantities are the targets for the shooting method. Mason and Hill [
16] applied a shooting method that used one conserved quantity for the target. The partial derivatives are approximated using a secant method which is an adaption of the method by Edun and Akanabi [
22] for two variables. The numerical method is verified by confirming that the numerical solution for the
x and
y components of the fluid velocity, shear stress and temperature difference tends to the analytical solution as
and
.
The research questions are:
- (i)
What are the assumptions and conditions in the boundary layer approximation for the two-dimensional thermal jet?
- (ii)
What are the conservation laws and conserved vectors for the partial differential equations and what are the conserved quantities for the two-dimensional turbulent thermal free jet?
- (iii)
What is the Lie point symmetry associated with the conserved vectors?
- (iv)
How do the momentum and thermal mixing lengths depend on the distance from the orifice along the centre line of the jet?
- (v)
Under what conditions is the turbulent thermal jet bounded in the transverse direction to the flow and what is the equation of the boundary?
- (vi)
Can analytical solutions for the stream function and mean temperature difference be derived for , , and numerical solutions using the shooting method for , ?
- (vii)
Does the numerical solution for , agree with the analytical solution for , .
- (viii)
Can analytical solutions for the streamlines of the mean flow and the lines of constant mean temperature difference be derived and plotted for , ?
The paper is organised as follows: In
Section 2, the two-dimensional turbulent free jet is formulated mathematically. In
Section 3, conservation laws for the system of two partial differential equations describing the turbulent jet are derived using the multiplier method and two conserved quantities are obtained. The associated Lie point symmetry is derived in
Section 4 and the general form of the invariant solution is obtained in
Section 5. In
Section 6, analytical solutions for
and
and a numerical solution for
and
are found. We discuss the results in
Section 7 and finally the conclusions are summarised in
Section 8.
7. Results Furthermore, Discussion
The solution for
and
is not fully determined. A further condition is required to complete the solution. We considered two different conditions. One condition was that it agrees with the solution for
and
in the limit
and
while the other condition was to impose Prandtl’s hypothesis that the mixing length is proportional to the width of the jet. For some turbulent flows, for example, the two-dimensional turbulent wake [
19] the two conditions give the same result. For the turbulent thermal jet they give different results. We denote the solution obtained from the limit
and
by an upper index (1) and the solution obtained by imposing the Prandtl’s hypothesis by an upper index (2).
In the Figures presented in this section physical variables are plotted. Quantities have not been made dimensionless. Unless otherwise stated we have taken , , , , and . Graphs with actual values of the physical quantities for a given thermal jet can be readily plotted if required.
Consider first the velocity profile of
plotted against
y at a fixed
x. From the analytical solutions it can be verified that
For
,
and
while for
the opposite is the case. For
, the two velocity profiles coincide. This is illustrated in
Figure 3 for
,
and
. From the analytical solution it can also be verified that for the temperature difference
which is the same as the ratio of velocities. The temperature difference also vanishes on the boundary
. The temperature difference for the two solutions is illustrated in
Figure 4. The preferred solution for vanishing
and
is the limit solution
and
because it evolves continuously from the solution for
and
.
From the solution for
and
,
The mean velocity on the centre line increases with the strength of the jet as
and decrease with the mixing length and distance as
. In comparison for the laminar jet, the velocity on the centre line increases as
but like the turbulent jet it decreases as
. The width of the turbulent jet,
, is independent of
J and increases with the mixing length and distance
x as
due to turbulent diffusion. The laminar jet extends to
. In
Figure 5, the velocity profile
is plotted at
for
and 1. For
the analytical solution (
218) for
,
is used and the numerical solution is used for
. We see from
Figure 5 that as
increases the mean velocity on the centre line decreases but the effective width of the jet increases due to diffusion. As
tends to zero the numerical result tends to the analytical result. When
is sufficiently small we cannot reliably determine whether
is zero or non-zero since its values are within the tolerance of the numerical scheme. When the numerical scheme is used to determine the limit solution
,
becomes complex for
but when
,
remains real for all considered values of
. This suggests that
remains positive for all positive values
, which supports the argument that
is infinite when
and
.
The effective mean shear stress is
In
Figure 6,
is plotted against
y for
, 0.1, 0.5 and 1 using (
276) for
and the numerical solution for
. As
tends to zero the numerical result tends to the analytical result. The shear layer of the jet is the region where
is most negative. For
, the width of the shear layer is
. As the kinematic viscosity increases the width of the shear layer increases due to the increase in diffusion.
A property of turbulent shear flows is that they entrain fluid from the surrounding ambient fluid [
23]. The process is referred to as entrainment. For
,
is given by (
219). On the boundary
,
The
y-component of velocity is negative on the boundary and there is an inflow of fluid at the boundary. The entrainment increases with the strength of the jet as
and decreases with distance as
. In
Figure 7,
is plotted against
y for
and 1. For
the analytical solution (
219) is used while for
the solution is derived numerically with
given by (
148). We see that as
tends to zero the numerical result tends to the analytical result. There is also entrainment in a laminar two-dimensional jet which extends to
. For a laminar jet
The entrainment increases more slowly with J as but decreases with the distance as for a turbulent jet.
Consider next the mean temperature difference,
. From the solution for
and
,
We see that when
and
the mean temperature difference on the centre line is proportional to the total heat flux
K and decreases with the total momentum flux as
. It decrease with distance
x and mixing length
as
which is the same as for the mean velocity. Otherwise it depends on the mixing lengths
and
through the ratio
. The width of the jet at position
x is again
given by (
273). The width is independent of
J and
K and
as a result of turbulent diffusion of momentum and heat. In
Figure 8, the profile of the mean temperature difference
is plotted at
for
and
,
and
,
and
and
and
. For
and
the solution (
220) for
and
is used and the numerical solution is used for
and
. As
and
tend zero the numerical result tends to the analytical result. We see from
Figure 8 that as
and
increase the temperature difference on the centre line decreases but the effective width of the jet increases due to the diffusion constants
and
being non-zero. The numerical solution for
tended to zero as
increased but never became complex for all values for
considered. This supported the claim that the jet is unbounded in the
y-direction when
and
.
We now compare the streamlines of the mean flow for
,
and
,
. The streamline pattern is symmetrical about the
x-axis. For
,
the streamlines in the upper and lower half of the jet are from (
227) and (
228) given by
where
. A streamline starts at the point
on the boundary of the jet where
with
given by (
223) and extends to
. The streamlines are plotted for a discrete range of values of
in
Figure 9.
For
and
the streamlines in the upper and lower half of the jet are from (
244) and (
245) given by
where
. A streamline starts at the point
on the boundary of the jet where
with
is given by (
242) and extends to
. The streamlines are plotted for a discrete range of values of
in
Figure 10. The entrainment of the fluid at the boundary is clearly seen in
Figure 9 and
Figure 10. Since
the fluid enters the jet at the boundary in the
-direction in the upper and lower half of the jet. The main difference between the streamline pattern in
Figure 9 and
Figure 10 is the boundary of the jet and the dependence on
x. For both solutions the parameters on which the streamlines and the boundary of the jet depend are the mixing length
,
J and
.
Finally we compare the lines of constant mean temperature difference for
,
and
and
. The lines of constant mean temperature difference are symmetrical about the centre line of the jet. For
,
a line of constant mean temperature difference in the upper and lower half of the jet is given by (
233):
The point
on the centre line is related to the temperature difference
on the line by
where
is given by (
224). The lines of constant mean temperature difference are plotted in
Figure 11 by giving
a range of discrete values on the centre line. The mean temperature difference on each line is obtained from (
287). Each line starts at the orifice
and proceeds into the upper and lower half of the jet ending at a point
with gradient negative and positive infinity. When
, (
286) reduces to the equation of the boundary of the jet (
273) on which the mean temperature difference
. For
and
a line of constant mean temperature difference in the upper and lower half of the jet is given by (
246):
The mean temperature difference
on the line is
with
given by (
243). The lines of constant mean temperature difference are plotted in
Figure 12. A line starts at the orifice
and extends into the upper and lower half of the jet. It ends at the point
with gradient negative and positive infinity. When
the mean temperature difference
and (
288) reduces to the boundary of the jet,
The pattern of the lines of constant mean temperature difference in
Figure 11 and
Figure 12 differ largely due to the different jet boundaries and different
x dependence. The lines of constant mean temperature difference depend through
on the ratio of the mixing lengths,
and
,
K,
J,
and
.
Our preferred solution for the approximation of vanishing kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity is the solution obtained by letting
,
because it evolves continuously from the numerical solution for
,
as illustrated in
Figure 5,
Figure 6 and
Figure 7. The solution derived by Howarth [
5] is the same as our solution for
,
with Prandl’s hypothesis because Howarth assumed that there is similarity between the fluid flow at different sections
of the jet, that the mixing length is constant across a section (
) and proportional to the breadth of a section.
We saw from the graphs in
Figure 3,
Figure 4 and
Figure 5,
Figure 7 and
Figure 8 that the effect of the kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity is to broaden the profiles due to diffusion of momentum and heat and to decrease the magnitude of
,
and
S on the axis of the jet due to friction between fluid elements. Entrainment of fluid at the boundary is clearly seen in
Figure 7,
Figure 9 and
Figure 10 in which there is inflow of fluid at the boundary.
The momentum boundary and the thermal boundary of the jet coincide because the eddy kinematic viscosity
and the eddy thermal conductivity
given by (
36) and (
37) both vanish when the mean velocity gradient
vanishes. If the approximation is made that
and
then the thermal jet is bounded in the
y-direction. However, although
and
may be small compared with
and
they are never zero in a real fluid and the jet will be unbounded in the
y-direction. We see from
Figure 5,
Figure 6,
Figure 7 and
Figure 8 that the jet will be very weak beyond the boundary determined by the limiting solution,
,
, which therefore determines the effective width of the wake.
The analytical solutions for
and
when
,
derived using Lie symmetry analysis could be readily adapted to give the equations of the streamlines of the mean flow and the lines of constant temperature difference. From
Figure 11,
Figure 12 and
Figure 13 we see that the two solutions for the streamlines and lines of constant temperature difference differ mainly in the vicinity of the boundary of the thermal jet.
8. Conclusions
The turbulent thermal jet was described by the Reynolds averaged momentum balance equation and averaged energy balance equation in the boundary layer approximation. The turbulence was described by the eddy viscosity and the eddy thermal conductivity. The eddy viscosity and eddy thermal conductivity where modelled using mixing lengths. The mixing lengths were assumed to be functions only of the distance from the orifice along the centre line of the jet.
The conserved vectors for the mean momentum flux and the mean heat flux and the conserved quantities derived from the conserved vectors played an essential role in the analysis. The associated Lie point symmetry derived using the two conserved vectors generated the invariant solution. The conserved quantity for the mean momentum flux determined the equation of the finite boundary of the jet when and . The two conserved quantities were targets in the numerical shooting method when and . The derivation of the associated Lie point symmetry was much easier than the derivation of the full Lie point symmetry because prolongations only to second order were required. From the double reduction theorem the two reduced ordinary differential equations could be integrated at least once because they were derived from a Lie point symmetry associated with the conserved vectors.
When and the form of the jet is purely due to turbulent diffusion of momentum and heat. Using the associated Lie point symmetry, the mixing lengths remained arbitrary functions, but were shown to be proportional to each other. We imposed Prandtl’s hypothesis that the mixing length is proportional to the width of the jet to obtain the functional forms of the mixing lengths and hence the invariant solution. The solution derived using Prandtl’s hypothesis is different from the solution obtained by letting and . Both solutions could be solved analytically and for both the jet was bounded in the transverse y-direction. The solution , is preferred because it evolves continuously from the solution for and .
For
and
the solution was derived numerically using the shooting method. The numerical solution tended to the analytical solution,
,
, as the kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity were decreased. The numerical solution was also used to calculate the boundary parameter
for the uncoupled system (
261), (
262) and (
264) when
and it matched the value obtained analytically. The numerical scheme is not applicable when
since there is a singularity at
in (
263). As with any numerical scheme, the numerical solution could not reliably determine if the jet is unbounded in the
y-direction when
and
. However, when
and
, because
and
as
, for sufficiently large values of
y,
and
and the jet behaves like a laminar jet which extends to
.
The form of the invariant solutions for
,
and
,
readily leads to analytical results for the streamlines of the mean flow and the lines of constant temperature difference. The graphs in
Figure 9 to
Figure 13 give a comparison of the analytical solutions for vanishing kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity and show the relation between the finite boundaries of the jets and the streamlines of the mean flow and the lines of constant mean temperature difference. The finite boundaries are lines of zero mean temperature difference.
Several novel results for the two-dimensional turbulent thermal jet have been derived. The derivation of the conservation laws and conserved vectors using the multiplier method was new. This lead to a systematic method of deriving the conserved quantities and the associated Lie point symmetry. In the numerical method, shooting to two targets which were conserved quantities was new. Prior work shot to only one conserved quantity. There are two possible solutions for vanishing kinematic viscosity and thermal conductivity, the solution
,
and the solution for
,
and our investigation of the two solutions and which is to be used was new. Howarth [
5] worked with the latter solution which requires the additional assumption that the mixing length is proportional to the distance to the boundary of the jet. Our results showed that the solution does not meet smoothly with the solution for
and
. The analytical solutions for the streamlines of the mean flow and the lines of constant mean temperature difference when
and
are new for the two-dimensional turbulent thermal jet. The graphs of the lines help to visualize the flow.
The most important result was to show that Lie symmetry analysis can be applied to problems like the two-dimensional turbulent thermal free jet and yield results directly and without lengthy calculations.