Mach number

About: Mach number is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 29930 publications have been published within this topic receiving 439228 citations. The topic is also known as: Ma & Mach.

On Sound Generated Aerodynamically. I. General Theory

Abstract: A theory is initiated, based on the equations of motion of a gas, for the purpose of estimating the sound radiated from a fluid flow, with rigid boundaries, which as a result of instability contains regular fluctuations or turbulence. The sound field is that which would be produced by a static distribution of acoustic quadrupoles whose instantaneous strength per unit volume is ρv i v j + p ij - a 2 0 ρ δ ij , where ρ is the density, v i the velocity vector, p ij the compressive stress tensor, and a 0 the velocity of sound outside the flow. This quadrupole strength density may be approximated in many cases as ρ 0 v i v j . The radiation field is deduced by means of retarded potential solutions. In it, the intensity depends crucially on the frequency as well as on the strength of the quadrupoles, and as a result increases in proportion to a high power, near the eighth, of a typical velocity U in the flow. Physically, the mechanism of conversion of energy from kinetic to acoustic is based on fluctuations in the flow of momentum across fixed surfaces, and it is explained in § 2 how this accounts both for the relative inefficiency of the process and for the increase of efficiency with U . It is shown in § 7 how the efficiency is also increased, particularly for the sound emitted forwards, in the case of fluctuations convected at a not negligible Mach number.

The compressible turbulent shear layer: an experimental study

Abstract: The growth rate and turbulent structure of the compressible, plane shear layer are investigated experimentally in a novel facility. In this facility, it is possible to flow similar or dissimilar gases of different densities and to select different Mach numbers for each stream. Ten combinations of gases and Mach numbers are studied in which the free-stream Mach numbers range from 0.2 to 4. Schlieren photography of 20-ns exposure time reveals very low spreading rates and large-scale structures. The growth of the turbulent region is defined by means of Pitot-pressure profiles measured at several streamwise locations. A compressibility-effect parameter is defined that correlates and unifies the experimental results. It is the Mach number in a coordinate system convecting with the velocity of the dominant waves and structures of the shear layer, called here the convective Mach number. It happens to have nearly the same value for each stream. In the current experiments, it ranges from 0 to 1.9. The correlations of the growth rate with convective Mach number fall approximately onto one curve when the growth rate is normalized by its incompressible value at the same velocity and density ratios. The normalized growth rate, which is unity for incompressible flow, decreases rapidly with increasing convective Mach number, reaching an asymptotic vaue of about 0.2 for supersonic convective Mach numbers.

On Sound Generated Aerodynamically. II. Turbulence as a Source of Sound

Abstract: The theory of sound generated aerodynamically is extended by taking into account the statistical properties of turbulent airflows, from which the sound radiated (without the help of solid boundaries) is called aerodynamic noise. The theory is developed with special reference to the noise of jets, for which a detailed comparison with experiment is made (§7 for subsonic jets, §8 for supersonic ones). The quadrupole distribution of part I (Lighthill 1952) is shown to behave (see §3) as if it were concentrated into independent point quadrupoles, one in each ‘average eddy volume’. The sound field of each of these is distorted, in favour of downstream emission, by the general downstream motion of the eddy, in accordance with the quadrupole convection theory of part I. This explains, for jet noise, the marked preference for downstream emission, and its increase with jet velocity. For jet velocities considerably greater than the atmospheric speed of sound, the ‘Mach number of convection’ M c may exceed I in parts of the jet, and then the directional maximum for emission from these parts of the jet is at an angle of sec -1 ( M c ) to the axis (§8). Although turbulence without any mean flow has an acoustic power output, which was calculated to a rough approximation from the expressions of part I by Proudman (1952) (see also § 4 below), nevertheless, turbulence of given intensity can generate more sound in the presence of a large mean shear (§ 5). This sound has a directional maximum at 45° (or slightly less, due to the quadrupole convection effect) to the shear layer. These results follow from the fact that the most important term in the rate of change of momentum flux is the product of the pressure and the rate of strain (see figure 2). The higher frequency sound from the heavily sheared mixing region close to the orifice of a jet is found to be of this character. But the lower frequency sound from the fully turbulent core of the jet, farther downstream, can be estimated satisfactorily (§7) from Proudman’s results, which are here reinterpreted (§5) in terms of sound generated from combined fluctuations of pressure and rate of shear in the turbulence. The acoustic efficiency of the jet is of the order of magnitude 10 -4 M 5 , where M is the orifice Mach number. However, the good agreement, as regards total acoustic power output, with the dimensional considerations of part I, is partly fortuitous. The quadrupole convection effect should produce an increase in the dependence of acoustic power on the jet velocity above the predicted U 8 law. The experiments show that (largely cancelling this) some other dependence on velocity is present, tending to reduce the intensity, at the stations where the convection effect would be absent, below the U 8 law. At these stations (at 90° to the jet) proportionality to about U 6.5 is more common. A suggested explanation of this, compatible with the existing evidence, is that at higher Mach numbers there may be less turbulence (especially for larger values of nd / U , where n is frequency and d diameter), because in the mixing region, where the turbulence builds up, it is losing energy by sound radiation. This would explain also the slow rate of spread of supersonic mixing regions, and, indeed, is not incompatible with existing rough explanations of that phenomenon. A consideration (§6) of whether the terms other than momentum flux in the quadrupole strength density might become important in heated jets indicates that they should hardly ever be dominant. Accordingly, the physical explanation (part I) of aerodynamic sound generation still stands. It is re-emphasized, however, that whenever there is a fluctuating force between the fluid and a solid boundary, a dipole radiation will result which may be more efficient than the quadrupole radiation, at least at low Mach numbers.

Lattice boltzmann model for the incompressible navier-stokes equation

Abstract: In this paper a lattice Boltzmann (LB) model to simulate incompressible flow is developed. The main idea is to explicitly eliminate the terms of o(M 2), where M is the Mach number, due to the density fluctuation in the existing LB models. In the proposed incompressible LB model, the pressure p instead of the mass density ρ is the independent dynamic variable. The incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are derived from the incompressible LB model via Chapman–Enskog procedure. Numerical results of simulations of the plane Poiseuille flow driven either by pressure gradient or a fixed velocity profile at entrance as well as of the 2D Womersley flow are presented. The numerical results are found to be in excellent agreement with theory.

Report: a model for flows in channels, pipes, and ducts at micro and nano scales

Abstract: Rarefied gas flows in channels, pipes, and ducts with smooth surfaces are studied in a wide range of Knudsen number (Kn) at low Mach number (M) with the objective of developing simple, physics-based models. Such flows are encountered in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), in nanotechnology applications, and in low-pressure environments. A new general boundary condition that accounts for the reduced momentum and heat exchange with wall surfaces is proposed and its validity is investigated. It is shown that it is applicable in the entire Knudsen range and is second-order accurate in Kn in the slip flow regime. Based on this boundary condition, a universal scaling for the velocity profile is obtained, which is used to develop a unified model predicting mass flow rate and pressure distribution with reasonable accuracy for channel, pipe, and duct flows in the regime (0 Kn). A rarefaction coefficient is introduced into this two-parameter model to account for the increasingly reduced intermolecular collisions...