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Concept
De Laval nozzle
Summary
A de Laval nozzle (or convergent-divergent nozzle, CD nozzle or con-di nozzle) is a tube which is pinched in the middle, making a carefully balanced, asymmetric hourglass shape. It is used to accelerate a compressible fluid to supersonic speeds in the axial (thrust) direction, by converting the thermal energy of the flow into kinetic energy. De Laval nozzles are widely used in some types of steam turbines and rocket engine nozzles. It also sees use in supersonic jet engines.
Similar flow properties have been applied to jet streams within astrophysics.
Giovanni Battista Venturi designed converging-diverging tubes known as Venturi tubes to experiment the effects in fluid pressure reduction while flowing through chokes (Venturi effect). German engineer and inventor Ernst Körting supposedly switched to a converging-diverging nozzle in his steam jet pumps by 1878 after using convergent nozzles but these nozzles remained a company secret. Later, Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval applied his own converging diverging nozzle design for use on his impulse turbine in the year 1888.
Laval's convergent-divergent nozzle was first applied in a rocket engine by Robert Goddard. Most modern rocket engines that employ hot gas combustion use de Laval nozzles.
Its operation relies on the different properties of gases flowing at subsonic, sonic, and supersonic speeds. The speed of a subsonic flow of gas will increase if the pipe carrying it narrows because the mass flow rate is constant. The gas flow through a de Laval nozzle is isentropic (gas entropy is nearly constant). In a subsonic flow, sound will propagate through the gas. At the "throat", where the cross-sectional area is at its minimum, the gas velocity locally becomes sonic (Mach number = 1.0), a condition called choked flow. As the nozzle cross-sectional area increases, the gas begins to expand, and the flow increases to supersonic velocities, where a sound wave will not propagate backward through the gas as viewed in the frame of reference of the nozzle (Mach number > 1.0).
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