2D Jet Experiment  

AE - 611 Laboratory Report  

Submitted by:  

Abhishek Kanthed 

150010031 

Group 2 

 
 
 Contents:  
 
List of Tables 
List of Figures 
List of abbreviations and symbols 
1. Introduction 
2. Experimental setup 
3. Methodology 
4. Results and discussion 
5. Conclusion 
REFERENCES 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
 
List of tables: 
 
Table1. Ambient Conditions. Whole experiment is carried out in three days for given jet 
exit velocity 20m/s. T0 is total temperature. P0 is total pressure. Mjet,exit is jet exit Mach no 
which is < 0.3 (incompressible flow). 
 
Table2. Variation of centerline velocity, Mass flux, Momentum flux and Energy flux along 
X/d locations  

List of figures: 

Fig.1 Various Regions in a Jet Into a Stagnant Atmosphere 

Fig 2. Rectangular jet Nozzle with W as a width and d as a height 

Fig 3. Jet characteristics in fully developed zone 

Fig 4. Plot shows more literature references values for y/b vs U/Uo of different x/d  

Fig 5. Self similarity profile for velocity data at different x/d locations 

Fig 8. Axial Variation of scales b and Um 

 
List of abbreviations and symbols: 

P0 = Total pressure 

Pstatic = Pambient = static pressure or ambient pressure 

∆P= P0-Pstatic 

U0 = Centerline velocity 

Y0.5 = Y at which U(y) =1/2*U0 

Uj = Jet exit velocity 

U(y) = Velocity at any Y from centerline(X) 

D = thickness of rectangular nozzle  

m(dot)(x) = Mass flux 

P(dot)(x) = Momentum flux  

E(dot)(x) = Energy flux 

1. Introduction:  

Jet  is  formed  when  new  fluid  is  injected  at  high  momentum  into  a  stationary 
fluid  where  these  two  fluids  may  or  may  not  be  the  same.  A  free  shear  flow  is 
defined  as  a  pressure  driven  unrestricted  flow  of  a  fluid  into  a  quiescent 
ambiance  where  any  type  of  wall  ceiling  or  obstruction  does  not  influence  the 
jet.  ‘Free’  refers  to  the  lack  of  constraining  (solid)  boundaries  in  the  flow  & 
hence,  pressure  is  atmospheric  almost  everywhere  while  ‘Shear’  indicates  that 
the  flows  are  dominated  by  velocity gradients. Prominent examples are jets. The 
jets  which  are  most  commonly  used  in  a  variety  of  applications  are  Circular  jet 
and  Planer  jet  which  are  2-D  jet.  They  are  known  as  2-D  jet  because  they  have 
negligible  variation  of  averaged  flow  quantities  in  one  direction.  In  case  of 
planer  jet  or  Rectangular  jet,  averaged  flow  quantities is negligible in span- wise 
direction  while  in  case  of  Circular  jet  there  is  no  variation  in  the  azimuthal 
direction.  
In these kind of jet, parameters like the jet spread rate and potential core decay 
play a strong role in deciding the efficiency of mixing for the process. Shear layer 
is the region in which most of the interactions and mixing between the ambient 
and jet fluids take place. Far away from the nozzle exit, the jet loses any memory 
of the nozzle cross sectional shape and the flow asymptotically attains the self- 
similar profile. Jet boundary is a free shear layer in which the static pressure is 
constant throughout. The boundary layer at the exit of the device develops as a 
free shear layer, mixing with the ambient fluid thereby entraining the ambient 
fluid in the jet stream. Thus, the mass flow at any cross section of the jet 
progressively increases thereby the jet Spreads along the downstream direction. 
In order to conserve momentum, the jet Centreline velocity decreases with 
downstream distance. When considering the temperature difference between 
the supply air and room ambient air, the air jets can be divided into isothermal 
jets and non-isothermal jets. In the present study, we consider the jet as 
Isothermal jet discharging into a large volume.  

 
The development of a jet is divided into three zones, related to centreline 
velocity decay. The structure of a free jet is shown in Fig 1.  
 
These three zones are as follows: 
1] Convergent zone: This region is called the Potential Core of the jet where the 

centreline velocity is equal to the nozzle outlet velocity. 

2] Transition zone: This is the region in which the centreline velocity starts to 

decay. The velocity decay can be approximated as proportional to x- 0.5 where x is 

the axial distance. It is known as the Interaction region where shear layers from 

both sides merge. 

3] Self similar zone: In this region, transverse velocity profiles are similar at 

different values of x and the centreline velocity decay is approximately 

proportional to x-1  

The flow from a planar jet is experimented with the following 

objectives:  

a) To understand the characteristics of planar jet  

b) Understanding various regimes.  

c) To Analyze Stream wise velocity of jet  

d) To characterize stream wise variation of jet velocity and half jet width  

e) To verify self-similarity  

f) To verify proposed conservation of momentum flux & variation of mass 

& energy flux  

 
2. Experimental setup: The air from the blower is forced into a rectangular 
duct and a planar jet is produced using a convergent setup. The exit slot has the 
following dimensions, Width w = 44 cm and thickness d = 18 mm. A pitot tube 
is used with digital manometer to record the ∆P readings from which jet velocity 
anywhere in the atmosphere can be studied. ∆P readings were taken for various 
X locations like 0d, 5d, 8d, 11d, 14d, and 17d. In order to traverse in X-direction, 
a manually operated carriage is used to support & move the pitot holder. In 
addition to that, the pitot holder can be moved in Y-direction too with screw rod 
rotation in Y-direction. The pitot tube is used to record the stagnation pressure 
and using differential manometer, the dynamic pressure is obtained by 
subtracting the static pressure of air from the atmosphere. Rectangular jet nozzle 
in our lab having width W and thickness d is as shown in fig 2. 

  
3. Methodology: 

Open circuit, open jet Wind tunnel is used in this experiment. It uses 
atmospheric fluid as working fluid i.e. air. The properties of air vary according to 
atmosphere so it is necessary to measure atmospheric conditions in terms of 
pressure and temperature before starting the experiment. The ambient 
conditions measured are shown in Table 1. Given jet exit velocity is 20m/s and 
we setup the velocity by adjusting VFD till point where the manometer shows 
the ∆P reading. 

a) The inclination of pitot tube w.r.t vertical & horizontal should be free as it will 
cause error as only a component of ram jet reaches the pitot tube. 

b) Use Calibrated manometer for extraction of pressure values. 

c) Horizontal carriage is used to move the pitot tube to required station(X 

direction) with jet opening as origin. 

d) The reading are taken in transverse direction(Y direction) until the difference 

between two points becomes insignificant which means we are outside the shear 
boundary layer. Use below given equation for that;  

e) Calculate U(y)/U0 for given X/d 

f) Calculate mass flux, moment flux and energy flux as follows:  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4. Results and Discussion: 
 
Pressure  Temperature  Density  U (jet exit)  Po 
Day  (KPa)  (K)  (kg/m3)  (m/s)  M(jet exit)  (KPa) 
1  100.17  301  1.1595  20  0.0575  100.4 
2  99.99  301  1.1564  20  0.0575  100.31 
Table 1: Ambient atmospheric conditions 

 
Table 2: Mass flux, Momentum flux and Energy flux.  
 
It is observed that the centreline as well as the maximum velocity is decreasing 
with increase in x/d. Also, the jet spread is increasing with x/d. This is shown in 
figure 3. 

The  extent  of  potential  core  is  estimated  by  observing  the  value  of  x/d  at which 
the  U0/Uj  starts  to  decrease  from  value  one.  Variation  of  centreline  velocity  (U0 
)/Uj is plotted against X/d location. 
 
 Fig 3. 
Because of momentum transfer from jet to stationary air we can see that the 
velocity profile widens as we increase the x positions and eventually the non 
dimensionalised velocity decreases. 

Due  to  gravity  effect  or  asymmetry  of  nozzle  exit,  centreline  velocity  drop down 
as  shown.  Similarly  variation  of  (U0/Ujet)2  plot  shows  good  matching  with 
literature  data. 
 
Along  X  location,  velocity  profile  changes  i.e.  U(y)  and  Y  varies.  To  make  flow 

similarity  curve,  these  two  terms  should  be  divided  by  such  a  parameter  that 

also  varies  with  X-location  i.e.  U0  and  Y0.5  .  Thus the similarity profile is plotted. It 

can  be  observed  that  all  x/d  profiles  are  compared  well  with each other and the 

flow seems to have achieved self similarity. 

  

Spread  rate  (S)  can  measured  as  the  slope  of  b/d  vs  x/d  is  called  here  it  is 
0.0875.  B  is  defined  by  the  slope  of  (Um/Uj)^(-2)  vs  x/d(E)  and is 0.141. It shows 
how  energy  decreases  with  the  spanwise  distance.  The  value  of  both  the  slopes 
depends  greatly  on  Reynold’s  number.  And  B  is  always  greater  than  S  which  is 
valid here. 

 
5. Conclusions:  

Following observations are made : 

1) Momentum remains conserved along the x direction. 

2) Mass flow rate should increase because of mass entrainment into jet 
stream. To conserve momentum with increasing mass flow, velocity should 
decrease. 
3) Energy decreases along the flow because of decreasing velocity and due to 
viscous dissipation. 
4) Momentum flux is conserved. 
5) Mass flux is increase with increasing x/d. Similarly, the trend of energy flux 
is decreasing, which can be explained by energy lost in turbulence. 
6) Self-similarity of the flow profiles away from the potential core is observed 
and verified. 
7) The centreline of the flow profiles dips downwards as the flow travels 
forward in x-direction. 
8) Changing the downstream conditions does not affect the jet profile.  

References:  

[1] Survey Of Literature On Flow Characteristics Of A Single Turbulent Jet Impinging On A 

Flat plate By James W. Guzlntner, John N. B. Livingood, Und Peter Lewis Research Center 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

[2] Theory of Jets by Division of fire & safety engineering, school of 
engineering,CUSAT. [3]Potential core lengths of round jets in stagnant and moving 
environments By Or, CM; Lam, KM; Liu, P,Journal Of Hydro-Environment Research, 
2011, v. 5 n. 2, p. 81- 91,2011.  
 
Acknowledgement: I appreciate the continuous guidance of the lab TAs for 
keeping the experiment smooth and finish efficiently within the time limit. The 
authors also convey their utmost gratitude to Dr. Aniruddha Sinha for explaining 
the principle of this experiment and clearing all doubts.