Transactions on Engineering Sciences vol 18, © 1998 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 Numerical study of a mixing layer in spatial and temporal development of a stratified flow M. Biage, M. S. Fernandes & P. Lopes Jr Department of Mechanical Engineering Center of Exact Science and Tecnology Federal University ofUberldndia, UFU- MG-Brazil
[email protected] Abstract The two-dimensional plane shear layers for high Reynolds numbers are simulated using the transient explicit Spectral Collocation method. The fast and slow air streams are submitted to different densities. A temporally growing mixing layer, developing from a hyperbolic tangent velocity profile to which is superposed an infinitesimal white-noise perturbation over the initial condition, is studied. In the same way, a spatially growing mixing layer is also study. In this case, the flow in the inlet of the domain is perturbed by a time dependent white noise of small amplitude. The structure of the vorticity and the density are visualized for high Reynolds number for both cases studied. Broad-band kinetic energy and temperature spectra develop after the first pairing are observed. The results showed that similar conclusions are obtained for the temporal and spatial mixing layers. The spreading rate of the layer in particular is in good agreement with the works presented in the literature. 1 Introduction The intensely turbulent region formed at the boundary between two parallel fluid streams of different velocity has been studied for many years. This kind of flow is called of mixing layer. The mixing layer of a newtonian fluid, non-reactive and compressible flow, practically, is one of the most simple turbulent flow.