Precessing vortex core in a swirling wake with heat release

Abstract Numerical simulation of the non-stationary three-dimensional swirling flow is presented for an open tube with a paraxial heat source. In the considered type of swirling flows, it is shown that a precessing vortex core (PVC) appears. The obtained PVC is a left-handed co-rotated bending single-vortex structure. The influence of the heat release enhancement on parameters of PVC is investigated. Using various turbulence models (the Spalart–Allmaras, k–ω and SST models), it is shown that an increase in the heat-source power leads to an increase in the PVC frequency and to a decrease in the amplitude of PVC oscillations. Moreover, we conduct the linear stability analysis of the simplified flow model with paraxial heating (the Rankine vortex with the piecewise axial flow and density) and demonstrate that its results correspond to the results of numerical simulations rather well. In particular, we prove that the left-handed bending mode ( m  = +1) is the most unstable one in the low-density wake and its frequency increases with a decrease of density ratio that is similar to the behavior of precession frequency with an increase of heat-source power .