Effect of Condensation on the Length of Strongly Underexpanded Jets Exhausting Into a Rarefied Submerged Space

Exhaustion of supersonic argon and nitrogen jets through sonic and supersonic nozzles into a rarefied submerged space at high stagnation pressures is studied experimentally. The shapes and lengths of the jets are visualized by means of detecting radiation excited in the considered flow by an electron beam. Dependences of the geometric parameters of the jets on exhaustion and clusterization conditions at low Reynolds numbers based on the reference length of the jet are obtained. It is found that the coefficient of proportionality between the length of the first “barrel” of the supersonic jet and the degree of jet expansion increases with an increase in the stagnation pressure. Empirical dependences of the proportionality coefficient on the size of clusters formed in supersonic flows are derived for the first time.