Determination of single and double helical structures in a swirling jet by spectral proper orthogonal decomposition

This paper studies the coherent structures found in an annular swirling jet flow undergoing vortex breakdown with control parameters, the Reynolds number Re = 8500 and the swirl number Sw = 0.38. The flow field is simulated using the large eddy simulation method with a dynamic k model. The first- and second-order statistics of the velocity fields are compared to tomographic particle image velocimetry measurements of the same flow configuration to validate the numerical simulation. The fast Fourier transform of the sampled velocity and pressure signals indicates a precessing vortex core with a frequency of 22 Hz. This frequency is in line with the one detected by spectral proper orthogonal decomposition, which is utilized to identify the coherent structures in the near-field region of the swirling flow in the present work. In detail, apart from the single helical structure usually found in swirling flows, a double helix, rarely observed in turbulent swirling jets, is also identified. This structure is not a second-order harmonic mode of the single one, as shown by statistical analysis of the mode temporal coefficients. Moreover, the calculation of energy production shows that this coherent precessing motion extracts energy from the mean flow field in the wake behind the bluff-body and in the breakup region of the vortex.