A numerical study of a turbulent plane jet impinging on a convex surface and on a flat surface is presented, using the large eddy simulation approach and the Smagorinski-Lilly sub-grid-scale model. The effects of the wall curvature on the unsteady filtered, and the steady mean, parameters characterizing the dynamics of the wall jet are addressed in particular. In the free jet upstream of the impingement region, significant and fairly ordered velocity fluctuations, that are not turbulent in nature, are observed inside the potential core. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities in the shear layer between the jet and the surrounding air are detected in the form of wavy sheets of vorticity. Rolled up vortices are detached from these sheets in a more or less periodic manner, evolving into distorted three dimensional structures. Along the wall jet the Coanda effect causes a marked suction along the convex surface compared with the flat one. As a result, relatively important tangential velocities and a stretching of sporadic streamwise vortices are observed, leading to friction coefficient values on the curved wall higher than those on the flat wall.
Single-shot, volumetrically illuminated, three-dimensional, tomographic laser-induced-fluorescence imaging in a gaseous free jet