Round Turbulent Thermals, Puffs, Starting Plumes and Starting Jets in Uniform Crossflow

Abstract

The self-preserving properties of round turbulent thermals, puffs, starting plumes and starting jets, in unstratified and uniform crossflow, were investigated experimentally. The experiments involved dye-containing fresh water (for nonbuoyant flows) and salt water (for buoyant flows) sources injected vertically downward into crossflowing fresh water within a water channel. Time-resolved video images of the flows were obtained using CCD cameras. Experimental conditions were as follows: source exit diameters of 3.2 and 6.4 mm, source Reynolds numbers of 2,500–16,000, source/ambient velocity ratios of 4–35, source/ambient density ratios (for buoyant flows) of 1.073 and 1.150, volumes of injected source fluid (for thermals and puffs) comprising 16–318 source diameters, streamwise (vertical) penetration distances of 0–200 source diameters and 0–13 Morton length scales (for buoyant flows) and crosstream (horizontal) penetration distances of 0–620 source diameters. Near-source behavior varied significantly with source properties and distance from the source but the flows generally became turbulent for streamwise distances within 5 source diameters from the source and became self-preserving for streamwise distances from the source greater than 40–50 source diameters. Crosstream motion satisfied the no-slip convection approximation. Streamwise motion for self-preserving conditions satisfied the behavior of corresponding self-preserving flows in still fluids: round thermals and puffs in still fluids for round thermals and puffs in crossflow and two-dimensional line thermals and puffs in still fluids for round starting plumes and jets in crossflow. The no-slip convection approximation for crossflow motion combined with self-preserving approximations for streamwise motion were also effective for predicting flow trajectories at self-preserving conditions for steady round turbulent plumes and jets in crossflow.