LAUSR

Abstract This study experimentally investigates the mean and turbulent flow fields of a propeller jet impinging on a vertical quay wall. Four impingement distances, namely, wall clearances (= longitudinal distance between the propeller and vertical wall), were used to examine their influence on the flow behaviors. In order to investigate the characteristics of the three-dimensional impinging jet, both the streamwise (jet central plane) and transverse (impingement plane) flow fields were measured for each impingement distance using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. Based on the wall clearance, three regions are identified, namely free, impingement and wall jet regions. Additionally, the results show that the evolution of the impinging jet is governed by two mechanisms: jet diffusion and wall obstruction. Their relative importance under varying wall clearances was interpreted in terms of the mean flow patterns and energy dissipation. Moreover, the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method is employed to identify the dominant flow structures associated with these two mechanisms in terms of the POD modes and their corresponding dominant frequency, which in turn provides a quantitative means to single out the individual flow mechanism.