Self-Preserving Mixing Properties of Steady Round Buoyant Turbulent Plumes in Uniform Crossflows

The self-preserving mixing properties of steady round buoyant turbulent plumes in uniform crossflows were investigated experimentally. The experiments involved salt water sources injected into fresh water crossflows within the windowed test section of a water channel. Mean and fluctuating concentrations of source fluid were measured over cross sections of the flow using Planar-Laser-Induced-Fluorescence (PLIF) which involved seeding the source fluid with Rhodamine 6G dye and adding small concentrations of ethanol to the crossflowing fluid in order to match the refractive indices of the source flow and the crossflow. The self-preserving penetration properties of the flow were correlated successfully based on the scaling analysis of Diez et al. (2003) whereas the self-preserving structure properties of the flow were correlated successfully based on the scaling analysis of Fischer et al. (1979); both approaches involved assumptions of no-slip convection in the cross stream (horizontal) direction (parallel to the crossflow) and a self-preserving line thermal having a conserved source specific buoyancy flux per unit length that moves in the streamwise (vertical) direction (parallel to the direction of both the initial source flow and the gravity vector). The resulting self-preserving structure consisted of two counter-rotating vortices having their axes nearly aligned with the crossflow direction that move away from the source in the streamwise (vertical) direction due to the action of buoyancy. Present measurements extended up to 202 and 620 source diameters from the source in the streamwise and cross stream directions, respectively. The onset of self-preserving behavior required that the axes of the counter-rotating vortex system be nearly aligned with the crossflow direction. This alignment, in turn, was a strong function of the source/crossflow velocity ratio, u_o/v_∞. The net result was that the onset of self-preserving behavior was observed at streamwise distances of 10–20 source diameters from the source for u_o/v_∞ = 4 (the smallest value of u_o/v_∞ considered), increasing to streamwise distances of 160–170 source diameters from the source for u_o/v_∞ = 100 (the largest value of u_o/v_∞ considered). Finally, the counter-rotating vortex system was responsible for substantial increases in the rate of mixing of the source fluid with the ambient fluid compared to axisymmetric round buoyant turbulent plumes in still environments, e.g., transverse dimensions in the presence of the self-preserving counter-rotating vortex system were 2–3 times larger than the transverse dimensions of self-preserving axisymmetric plumes at similar streamwise distances from the source.