Behaviour of small-scale turbulence in the turbulent/non-turbulent interface region of developing turbulent jets

Tomographic particle image velocimetry experiments were conducted in the near and intermediate fields of two different types of jet, one fitted with a circular orifice and another fitted with a repeating-fractal-pattern orifice. Breda & Buxton ( J. Vis. , vol. 21 (4), 2018, pp. 525–532; Phys. Fluids , vol. 30, 2018, 035109) showed that this fractal geometry suppressed the large-scale coherent structures present in the near field and affected the rate of entrainment of background fluid into, and subsequent development of, the fractal jet, relative to the round jet. In light of these findings we now examine the modification of the turbulent/non-turbulent interface (TNTI) and spatial evolution of the small-scale behaviour of these different jets, which are both important factors behind determining the entrainment rate. This evolution is examined in both the streamwise direction and within the TNTI itself where the fluid adapts from a non-turbulent state, initially through the direct action of viscosity and then through nonlinear inertial processes, to the state of the turbulence within the bulk of the flow over a short distance. We show that the suppression of the coherent structures in the fractal jet leads to a less contorted interface, with large-scale excursions of the inner TNTI (that between the jet’s azimuthal shear layer and the potential core) being suppressed. Further downstream, the behaviour of the TNTI is shown to be comparable for both jets. The velocity gradients develop into a canonical state with streamwise distance, manifested as the development of the classical tear-drop shaped contours of the statistical distribution of the velocity-gradient-tensor invariants $\mathit{Q}$ and $\mathit{R}$ . The velocity gradients also develop spatially through the TNTI from the irrotational boundary to the bulk flow; in particular, there is a strong small-scale anisotropy in this region. This strong inhomogeneity of the velocity gradients in the TNTI region has strong consequences for the scaling of the thickness of the TNTI in these spatially developing flows since both the Taylor and Kolmogorov length scales are directly computed from the velocity gradients.