Unsteady pressure and velocity measurements in 5 × 5 rods bundle using grids with and without mixing vanes

Abstract The vibration of rods is of prime importance to estimate their wearing due to the frictions with grids’ elements. To predict this wearing, the pressure fluctuations exerted on the rods need to be identified and quantified. Pressure fluctuations are explored using an instrumented rod centred within a 5 × 5 rods bundle. The profiles of mean velocity and velocity fluctuations are explored around the instrumented rod using LDV. Two configurations of spacer-grids are used: with and without mixing vanes respectively noted WMV and NMV. The position of the measurement point is rotated over 360° and its distance from the grids is varied from 0.5Dh to 20Dh. The results are detailed for the Reynolds number 66000. The results show the non-homogeneity of the azimuthal distribution of the pressure fluctuations in the near wake of the spacer-grids for both configurations. The return to a homogeneous azimuthal distribution of the pressure fluctuations is faster without mixing vanes than with mixing vanes. The intensities of the pressure fluctuations are (in average) higher for WMV than for NMV by 13% and 136% at distances 0.5Dh and 20Dh from the grids respectively. The correlation functions and energy spectra highlight significant differences in the spatial and temporal structure of the pressure fluctuations for the configurations with and without mixing vanes. For both configurations, pressure fluctuations spectra reveal a frequency peak in the near wake of the grids. These peaks are around f D h / V flow ≈ 0.8 (69 Hz). Maxima are found at f ∗ = 0.78 (66.8 Hz) and f ∗ = 0.87 (74.6 Hz) respectively for WMV and NMV configurations. This frequency peaks persist farther from the grid for NMW than for WMV. The integral scale of pressure fluctuations highlight to different behaviour. The pressure integral length scale stays small compared to Dh (ranging from 0.13Dh to 0.2Dh) for the NMV configuration whilst it increases with the distance from the grid for the WMV case. This is coherent with the persistence of frequency peaks for the NMV configurations. The pressure integral length scale is found to be 2–9 times larger for WMV than for NMV with the increase of the distance from the grid between 0.5Dh and 20Dh. A significant anti-correlated domain appears for NMW and not for WMV. In addition, LDV results show oscillations of the velocity profiles and a damping with the distance from the grids. Between 2Dh and 15Dh, the dimensionless ratio of “pressure fluctuations to velocity fluctuations” 〈 P rms ' 〉 θ / 1 2 ρ 〈 v rms ' 2 〉 P s q is found to increase by about 70% and 100% respectively for the configurations NMV and WMV. This increase further reveals the complexity of the turbulent flow in the wake of spacer-grids.