Turbulent jet theory via Lie symmetry analysis: the free plane jet

A theory of incompressible turbulent plane jets (TPJs) is proposed by advancing an improved boundary layer approximation over the limiting classical – retaining more terms in the momentum balance equations. A pressure deficit inside the jet (with respect to the ambient) must exist due to transverse turbulence (Miller & Comings, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 3, 1957, pp. 1–16; Hussain & Clarke, Phys. Fluids, vol. 20, 1977, pp. 1416–1426). Contrary to the universally accepted invariance of the total momentum flux $J_T(x)$ (non-dimensionalized by its inlet value) as a function of the streamwise distance $x$ , we prove that $J_T(x) >1$ – a condition that all TPJs must satisfy; surprisingly, prior theories and most experiments do not satisfy this condition. This motivated us to apply Lie symmetry analysis with translational and dilatational transformations of the modified equations (incorporating $J_T>1$ ), which yields scaling laws for key jet measures: the mean streamwise and transverse velocities $U(x,y)$ and $V(x,y)$ , the turbulence intensities, the Reynolds shear stress $-\rho \,\overline {u'v'}(x,y)$ , the mean pressure $P(x,y)$ , etc. Experiments satisfying $J_T(x)>1$ validate our predictions for all jet measures, including, among others, the profiles of $U$ , $V$ and $-\rho \,\overline {u'v'}$ . We further predict $U \sim x^{-0.24}$ , $V \sim x^{-0.45}$ , $-\rho \,\overline {u'v'}\sim x^{-0.69}$ , the mass flux $Q_m \sim x^{0.55}$ , and $J_T$ increases to approximately 1.5. Contrary to the classical linear jet spread, we find sublinear spread, with the jet half-width growing like $b(x)\sim x^{0.79}$ , indicating a narrower jet. Our predictions differ notably from most results reported in the literature. These contradictions demand revisiting jet studies involving carefully designed facilities and boundary conditions, and highly resolved simulations.