International Journal of Mechanical and Production

Engineering Research and Development (IJMPERD)

ISSN(P): 2249–6890; ISSN(E): 2249–8001
Vol. 10, Issue 3, Jun 2020, 8617–8624
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SUPERSONIC JET CHARACTERISTICS OF A

GROOVED NOZZLE

KOWSALYA P1, ASHWIN V.G2, DHARANI J3 & SURESH CHANDRA KHANDAI4

1,2
Research Scholar, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai
3
Assistant. Professor, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai
4
Associate Professor, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai

ABSTRACT

In this paper, an investigation is done for supersonic jet expanding from convergent-divergent nozzle with and without
grooves for three different conditions such as over expansion, optimum expansion and under expansion. A convergent-
divergent(C-D) nozzle was designed for Mach number of 1.4 with exit diameter of 12 mm. Flow visualization technique
was used to visualize shocks at the exit of nozzle with help of shadowgraph method. Experiments were conducted and
pressure decay tests were taken for three different cases. Core length was also found with the help of pressure decay test.
The changes and effects of jet mixing enhancement for nozzle with and without grooves in three different cases were

Original Article
studied experimentally in this project. A new type of groove geometry is introduced in the nozzle core flow and the effects
of potential core length, shock cell, Mach disk were studied.

KEYWORDS: Supersonic Jet, Grooved Nozzle, C-D Nozzle, Nozzle Pressure Ratio

Received: Jun 08, 2020; Accepted: Jun 28, 2020; Published: Aug 19, 2020; Paper Id.: IJMPERDJUN2020819

INTRODUCTION

Development in Aerospace industries has lead to an intense development in the design and parameters of the nozzle
section. Different types of nozzle has been designed, tested and used in different areas. The most commonly
encountered problem in any nozzle will be its entrainment character of the exit jet. Better entrainment character of
the nozzle will lead to weaken the shock cell formed. In order to increase the entrainment character, different
technique has been adopted by different researchers and were studied. One among the different technique is the
implementation of internal grooves. These internal grooves are designed in different shape and dimensions. In this
paper a truncated square groove at the end of the diverging section has been imparted and tests were carried out to
study the entrainment character.

Many researches and computational analysis were carried out for different tab geometries, tabs with
perforations [9,10] and grooved nozzle to study the decay characteristics. The decay characteristics of supersonic
jets issuing from a circular nozzle with square grooves for three different total pressures were studied by Ilakkiya et
al. The presence of single and double grooves at lower pressure values is more effective than at higher pressure.
Double grooved nozzle shows better entrainment character than the single grooved nozzle [1]. A computational
analysis has been carried out to study the flow deployment from a circular supersonic jet issuing from nozzle with
and without triangular grooves. When the grooves are introduced, the rapid decay in the supersonic jet comes
earlier than nozzle without groove [2]. A new semicircular shaped groove was designed and experimental studies

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8618 Kowsalya P, Ashwin V.G, Dharani J & Suresh Chandra Khandai

were done. It was found that the jet decay character was improved compared to that of the plain nozzle. Off centre peaks
were observed because of the formation of the stream wise vortices shed from the groove[3]. The aerodynamic and
acoustic characteristics of jets from nozzles with internal grooves were studied and compared for semicircular and square
groove. It is observed that in semi-circular grooved nozzle, first two shock cell characters are similar to that of plane nozzle
and the decay is rapid only after the fourth shock cell. Square grooves influences the shock cell strength form the first cell.
Thus square groove has better entrainment character than semi circular groove [4].

The next phase of the propulsion system is the hypersonic vehicle. These hypersonic vehicles mostly uses the
rectangular nozzle for design simplicity. Many research work has been conducted in this sector of the nozzle for
entrainment character. A Computational study has been carried out in rectangular nozzle with square grooves. The grooves
were made for three different orientations as minor- axis, major-axis and in both minor and major axes. Potential core-
length of plain jet and jet with grooves in major axis direction extends up to 3·9 times of the exit diameter of the nozzle
(D). On the other hand, for jets with grooves in minor-axis direction and in both axes, the potential core-length extends up
to 4D [5]. Nozzle with semicircular groove and square groove were constructed and results were compared .It is clear from
the experiment that the square groves has more effect on the nozzle jet decay character compared to that of the semi
circular grooves. This grooves results in the formation of screech with lower amplitude and higher frequencies [6].

DESIGN AND GEOMETRY

For the study two nozzles were fabricated, one single grooved nozzle and one double grooved nozzle, for the required
dimension of 12mm exit diameter and area ratio (Ae/At) of 1.115 (as shown in Figure 1). The nozzle was designed with the
help of Catia V5 and was fabricated in order to operate at a exit Mach number of 1.4. Truncated square grooves were
introduced at the exit of the nozzle towards the throat up to a distance of 12.5mm i.e., half the diverging length. The
dimensional cross section view of the nozzle is shown in Fig 1.The figure 1(b) and 1(c) shows the dimension and
placement of single groove and double groove atthe exit of the nozzle

Figure 1: Three View Diagram of Plain and Grooved Nozzle.

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Experimental Study of Supersonic Jet Characteristics of a Grooved Nozzle 8619

The Nozzle Pressure Ratio(NPR) for optimum expansion was set as 3.25bar. The under expanded and over
expanded condition's NPR were set as 5bar and 2.25bar respectively.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

High Speed Jet Facility

All the experiments were carried out at the high speed jet facility present at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering
(REC), Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, India(Figure 2). The reservoir has a maximum capacity of 25bar.A two
15hp compressors were used to charger the reservoir. The compressed air from the reservoir was supplied to the settling
chamber with the help of a rubber house. The settling chamber has a opening valve and a pressure regulating valve in it. A
pressure gauge, which can read up to 30bar was installed in it. The traverse mechanism was used to hold the Pitot tube and
move the Pitot tube in axial distance at uniform speed. A eight channel pressure transducer was used to measure the
pressure readings. A laptop with data accusation board was used to extract the values form the transducer.

Figure 2: Schematic Diagram of Supersonic Jet Test Facility at REC.

Flow Visualization

Flow visualization techniques are used in order to view the density variation in a gaseous medium. A single mirror and
single lens Shadow graph flow visualization technique was used in order to capture the shock pattern of the nozzles. The
surface of the mirror was covered and a small hole of 10cm diameter was made in order to focus the light on to the screen.
A convex mirror was used in order to focus the light on to the mirror. Sodium vapour lamp was used as a monochromatic
light source. The images were captured using a 22mega pixel DSLR camera.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The experiments were carried out for optimum-expansion, under-expansion and over-expansion conditions. The pressure
values are 5 bar, 3.25 bar,2.25 bar for under-expansion, optimum-expansion and over-expansion respectively. Core length
is the main factor on which the whole experimentation is related to. The core length determines the entrainment character
of a nozzle jet. For the jet to be of more entrained then the core length must be as small as possible. In this paper three
condition were taken into consideration and experiments were carried out for plain nozzle, one grooved nozzle and two
grooved nozzle.

The nozzle exit jet character was studied by measuring the total pressure along the centre line of the downstream
of the nozzle jet. Faster entrainment results in faster mixing of the exit jet with the ambient air. Thus the total pressure
readings were used to measure the character of both the grooved and un-grooved nozzle. The jet portion were the flow is
supersonic in nature is highly wave dominant in nature.

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8620 Kowsalya P, Ashwin V.G, Dharani J & Suresh Chandra Khandai

The centre line total pressure measurements were taken for three different inlet condition for three different
nozzle. In order to plot the graph the readings were converted to non dimensional units such as P/Po for the pressure values
and X/D for the distance values. The figure 3(a),3(b)and 3(c) shows the centre line pressure values for the three different
cases such as under expansion, over expansion and optimum expansion respectively. In figure3(a) the pressure values starts
to reduce and then the line starts to increase, this is because the first wave present in the exit of the nozzle in under
expansion is a expansion wave and in expansion the pressure value starts to reduce before the expansion fan and then the
pressure value increases after the fan. In figure3(c) optimum expansion also shows the same type of wave pattern seen in
under expansion and this is because the optimum expansion case value acts as the under expansion case in real time. In
over expansion the inlet pressure in very low due to which the pressure graph tends to move in a straight line.

Figure 3(a): Comparison of Centerline Pressure Decay for Under Expanded Nozzles.

Figure 3(b): Comparison of Centerline Pressure Decay for Over Expanded Nozzles.

Figure 3(c): Comparison of Centerline Pressure Decay for Optimum Expanded Nozzles.

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Experimental Study of Supersonic Jet Characteristics of a Grooved Nozzle 8621

In case of under expansion, the plain nozzle has a core length of 8.2D where as in the case of single grooved and
double grooved nozzle has a core length of 6.37D and 5.48D respectively. This reduction in core length is caused by the
formation of vortices in the exit of the nozzle. When the jet moves from throat to exit of the nozzle it experiences an
increase in the exit area this is due to the presence of the grooves. In single grooved nozzle increase in area is within the
allowable region which makes the groove as standard one. This case is applicable for the double groove case also.

The groove tends to increase the exit area. This increase in the exit area causes a sudden expansion in the jet. This
expansion causes the jet to deviate from the centre line to outward direction. This deviation of the jet causes the outer layer
of the jet to mix with the ambient air from the start of the exit of the nozzle. This mixing is known as the turbulence in the
exit jet. This turbulence weakens the strength of the shock cell. This weak shock cell tends to have a god mixing character
with the ambient air.

As the inlet pressure reduces, the core length of the nozzle exit jet also reduces. This can be seen in the case of
over expansion were the plane nozzle has a core length of 4D, single groove has a core length of 2.78D and double groove
has a core length of 2.14D. This signifies that the reduction in the core length with the grooves is less effective at lesser
inlet pressure. This is because at the low inlet pressure the velocity of the air moving will also be less. This less velocity air
does not create a faster vortex and thus the turbulence created is small and hence the core length of the exit jet also does
not reduce in a much appreciable value.

Figure 4: (a) (b) (c)

The shadowgraph method of flow visualization technique was used to capture the flow patterns at the exit of the
nozzle. Figure 4(a) shows the shocks at the exit of plain nozzle for three cases. The upper part was under expansion, the
middle part was optimum expansion and the lower part was overexpansion. Similarly, figure4(b) shows one-grooved
nozzle and figure4(c) shows two-grooved nozzle. As seen in figure4(b), the jet boundary was not straight as compared to
plain nozzle because a one-groove was introduced in nozzle, hence the flow was asymmetric. When groove was introduced
at the exit of the nozzle, the area of exit would be increased, this lead would weak the shocks at the exit of the nozzle.
Hence at figure4(c) for overexpansion case, the shocks were not clearly visible.

CONCLUSIONS

In this experimental work, the effect of truncated square groove in circular nozzle was investigated for three cases such as
under expansion, optimum expansion and over expansion. The pressure decay test shows that at under expansion case the
core length with one-groove was reduced by 22.3% and with two-groove was reduced by 33.17%. This shows that two-

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8622 Kowsalya P, Ashwin V.G, Dharani J & Suresh Chandra Khandai

groove is more effective in under expansion case. For optimum expansion the core length for one groove was reduced by
27% and for two-groove the core length reduced by 26.7%. This shows that there is not much difference in one-groove and
two-groove in optimum expansion case. For over expansion case the core length for one-groove is reduced by 30.5% and
for two-groove the core length was reduced by 46.5%. Hence, this shows that two-groove is more effective than one-
groove in over-expansion.

NOMENCLATURE

• X Distance along the axis of the nozzle

• C-D Convergent-Divergent

• NPR Nozzle pressure ratio

• D Exit diameter

• P Pressure measured by Pitot tube

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