PIV measurements of coherent vortices and turbulence production inside acoustic liner cavity with offset slit

This paper reports an experimental investigation into the vortex dynamics purely excited by periodic acoustic waves within a slit–cavity structure, which is a typical unit element of an acoustic liner for aeroengine applications. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to measure the instantaneous, time-averaged and phase-dependent flow dynamics inside the slit–cavity, which is exposed to high-intensity incident acoustic waves. Different with traditional literature mainly focusing on the acoustic characteristics, we primarily analyze the coherent vortex structures and turbulence production mechanism, accompanying with the variable of slit offset ratio being taken into consideration. The results demonstrate that the acoustic waves can excite the hydrodynamic velocities exceeding almost tens of times than the acoustic particle velocity, yielding multi-scale vortex structures appearing within the enclosed volume. Comparatively, in configuration with offset slit, the maximum hydrodynamic velocities were gradually intensified by wall confinement effect. Subsequent proper orthogonal decomposition analysis revealed the coherent vortex structures and demonstrated the offset configuration will increase their energy proportions and enhance their temporal correlations. However, the phase-dependent flow results revealed that the offset slit can oppositely attenuate the kinematics of the coherent vortices, which were represented by the convection trajectories and convection speeds, especially during the initial acceleration stage. Finally, analysis on turbulence production mechanism confirmed the attenuated turbulent kinetic energy by the offset slit, which was attributed to the less generation of shear stresses.