Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Entrainment characteristics of a pure jet and buoyant jets in a stably-stratified ambient are compared with the help of laboratory experiments employing simultaneous particle image velocimetry and planar laser induced fluorescence techniques. For the buoyant jet, two cases of background stratification are considered, N = 0.4 s and 0.6 s, where N is the buoyancy frequency. Evolution of volume flux, Q, momentum flux, M, buoyancy flux, F, characteristic velocity, , width, , and buoyancy, with axial distance is quantified that helps in understanding the mean flow characteristics. Subsequently, two different methods are used for computing the entrainment coefficient, ; namely the standard entrainment hypothesis based on the mass conservation equation and energy-consistent entrainment relation proposed by van Reeuwijk and Craske (J Fluid Mech 782:333–355, 2015). It is observed that entrainment coefficient is constant for the pure jet ( 0.1) up until the point where the upper horizontal boundary starts to influence the flow. The entrainment coefficient for buoyant jets, , is not constant and varies with axial location before starting to detrain near the neutral layer. Near the source, 0.12 for both the values of N, while away from the source, N = 0.6 s exhibits a higher value of 0.15 in comparison to 0.13 for N = 0.4 s. During detrainment near the neutral layer, – 0.2 for N = 0.4 and – 0.3 for N = 0.6 . Importantly, close to the source, from standard entrainment hypothesis and energy-consistent relation are in reasonable match for pure jet and buoyant jets. However, far away from the source, the energy-consistent relation is ineffective in quantifying the entrainment coefficient in the pure jet and detrainment in buoyant jets. We propose ways in which the energy-consistent relation could be reconciled with standard entrainment hypothesis in the far-field region.

Buoyant jet,Momentum,Buoyancy,Entrainment,Detrainment

We report mean flow and turbulence characteristics of a buoyant jet evolving in a linearly stratified ambient with stratification strength ⁠. The velocity and density fields are captured experimentally using simultaneous particle image velocimetry and planar laser-induced fluorescence technique. We report our findings by strategically choosing four axial locations such that it covers different flow regimes; namely, momentum-dominated region, buoyancy-dominated region, neutral buoyant layer, and plume cap region. The results at these axial locations are presented as a function of the radial co-ordinate to provide a whole field picture of the flow dynamics. From the mean axial velocity and density fields, it is seen that the velocity and the scalar (density) widths are of the same magnitude in the momentum-dominated region but show significant difference in the buoyancy-dominated region and beyond. It is also seen that the axial velocity for the buoyant jet is consistently higher than pure jet at different axial locations due to buoyancy-aided momentum. With the help of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) budget analysis, it is seen that the shear production (P) and TKE dissipation (⁠⁠) for a buoyant jet are higher compared to the case of pure jet at different axial locations, cementing the role of buoyancy and stratification on the flow dynamics. Further, it is observed that the buoyancy flux (B) aids and destroys TKE intermittently in the radial direction, and it is at least smaller than P, ⁠, and the mean flow buoyancy flux (F). Finally, the relative strength of the turbulent transport of momentum to that of scalar in the radial direction is quantified using the turbulent Prandtl number, ⁠. It is seen that   upto the neutral buoyant layer and 0.6 in the plume cap region. The current set of results obtained from experiments are first of its kind and elucidates various aspects of the flow which hitherto remained unknown and will also prove to be useful in testing numerical simulations for buoyancy-driven flows.