To evaluate the performance of a few existing turbulence models and present nonisotropic $C_{\mu}$ correction for turbulent swirling jets, calculations are made for three cases with and without recirculation. A finite difference scheme based on the Navier-Stokes equations is developed and used for this purpose. Inlet conditions are given by the experiment, whenever possible, to minimize the error due to the incorrect initial conditions.
The Standard K-$\epsilon$ model performs well for the strongly swirling jet with recirculation while it underpredicts the influence of swirl for weakly swirling jets.
Rodi's swirl correction improves the prediction of the weakly swirling jets. However the correction appears to be excessive for the strongly swirling jet and the results are very poor.
The algebraic stress model gives better correlation than Rodi's model for the turbulence quantities for the weakly swirling jet ; its performance for the strongly swirling jet is not good.
The nonisotropic $C_{\mu}$ correction derived from ASM in the present study performs consistently better than others for all cases. It may be because these flows have a strong dependence of stresses on the local strain of the mean flow. The predictions of turbulence intensities indicate that this model successfully accounts for the curvature effect in swirling jets, i.e. the stabilizing and destabilizing effects of swirl on the turbulence transport.
