Recirculation in swirling flow - A manifestation of vortex breakdown

Abstract

The addition of a sufficiently high degree of swirl to flow going into a circular pipe produces a limited region of reversed flow. Such a vortex breakdown, as it is termed, represents a zone of transition from a supercritical to a subcritical flow state. If the flow remains subcritical, an unavoidable consequence is that the geometry and conditions downstream directly affect the upstream flow up to, and including, the breakdown region. Laser Dopper anemometer measurements of the swirl and axial velocity components, as well as the corresponding streamline patterns, are presented for water flow in a model based upon the geometry of a swirl combustor. It is shown that a strong exit contraction (55 percent of the diameter) has practically no influence on a flow which reverts to supercritical, whereas even a weak contraction (15 percent of the diameter) has a significant influence on a flow which remains subcritical. It is argued that a cold flow is likely to be totally unrepresentative of a reacting flow through the same geometry, and, also, that great care has to be taken over the boundary conditions to be imposed for the numerical computation of subcritical flows. 20 references.