Thermochemical nonequilibrium in rapidly expanding flows of high-temperature air

Abstract

This paper describes a computational study of the thermal and chemical nonequilibrium occuring in a rapidly expanding flow of high-temperature air transported as a free jet from an orifice into low-density stationary air. Translational, rotational, vibrational and electron temperatures are treated separately, and in particular the vibrational temperatures are individually treated; a multi-vibrational temperature model is adopted. The governing equations are axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations coupled with species vibrational energy, electron energy and species mass conservation equations. These equations are numerically solved, using the second order upwind TVD scheme of the Harten-Yee type. The calculations were carried out for two different orifice temperatures and also two different orifice diameters to investigate the effects of such parameters on the structure of a nonequilibrium free jet.