Experimental Investigation on the Influence of a Double-Walled Confined Width on the Velocity Field of a Submerged Waterjet

The current research on confined submerged waterjets mainly focuses on the flow field of the impinging jet and wall jet. The double-sided wall vertically confined waterjet, which is widely used in many fields such as mining, cleaning and surface strengthening, has rarely been studied so far. In order to explore the influence of a double-sided wall confined width on the velocity field of submerged waterjet, an experiment was conducted with the application of 2D particle image velocimetry (PIV) technology. The distribution of mean velocity and turbulent velocity in both horizontal and vertical planes was used to characterize the flow field under various confined widths. The results show that the vertical confinement has an obvious effect on the decay rate of the mean centerline velocity. When the confined width changes from 15 to 5, the velocity is reduced by 20%. In addition, with the decrease of the confined width, the jet has a tendency to spread horizontally. The vertically confined region induces a space hysteresis effect which changes the location of the transition region moving downstream. There are local negative pressure zones separating the fluid and the wall. This study of a double-walled confined jet provides some valuable information with respect to its mechanism and industrial application.