Investigating mode competition and three-dimensional features from two-dimensional velocity fields in an open cavity flow by modal decompositions

Shear-layer driven open cavity flows are known to exhibit strong self-sustained oscillations of the shear-layer. Over some range of the control parameters, a competition between two modes of oscillations of the shear layer can occur. We apply both Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and Dynamic Mode Decomposition to experimental two-dimensional two-components time and spaced velocity fields of an incompressible open cavity flow, in a regime of mode competition. We show that, although proper orthogonal decomposition successes in identifying salient features of the flow, it fails at identifying the spatial coherent structures associated with dominant frequencies of the shear-layer oscillations. On the contrary, we show that, as dynamic mode decomposition is devoted to identify spatial coherent structures associated with clearly defined frequency channels, it is well suited for investigating coherent structures in intermittent regimes. We consider the velocity divergence field, in order to identify spanwise coherent features of the flow. Finally, we show that both coherent structures in the inner-flow and in the shear-layer exhibit strong spanwise velocity gradients, and are therefore three-dimensional.