UFR 1-07 Description

Front Page

Description

Test Case Studies

Evaluation

Best Practice Advice

References

Description

Introduction

Free vertical buoyant plumes and free-jets are related phenomena, both having a core region of higher momentum flow surrounded by shear layers bounding regions of quiescent fluid. However, whereas for jets the driving force for the fluid motion is a pressure drop through an orifice, for plumes the driving force is buoyancy due to gradients in fluid density. Plumes can develop due to density gradients caused by temperature differences, for example in fires, or can be generated by fluids of different density mixing, such as hydrogen releases in air. There are many flows of both engineering and environmental importance that feature buoyant plumes, ranging from flows in cooling towers and heat exchangers to large geothermal events such as volcanic eruptions. There has been considerable attention paid to the mean flow behaviour of plumes in the far field, e.g. Chen & Rodi  [5] or List [6] [7], which are examined in a companion UFR. However, there has been less study of the near-field unsteady dynamics of plumes.

In the present work, only non-reacting plumes are considered. This choice has been made in order to avoid the additional complexities associated with combustion, soot production and radiation in fire plumes. For helium plumes, the difference in density between helium and air is a factor of seven which is similar to that in fire plumes [8]. The principal difference between fire and helium plumes arises from the fact that heat is released locally from the flame in fire plumes whereas in helium plumes the buoyancy is produced only near the source where there are large concentration gradients.

The near-field of buoyant plumes features two key instabilities. The first is the Rayleigh-Taylor instability related to the presence of dense fluid above less-dense fluid. The two layers of different-density fluid are in equilibrium if they remain completely plane-parallel but the slightest disturbance causes the heavier fluid to move downwards under gravity through the lighter fluid. At the interface between the two fluids, irregularities are magnified to form fingers or spikes of dense fluid separated by bubbles of lighter fluid. The size of these irregularities grows exponentially with time and the smaller the density difference, the larger the wavelength of the instability. There has been considerable research into the dynamics of Rayleigh-Taylor instability (e.g. [9][10] [11][12]) as a consequence of its importance in nuclear weapons, atmospheric flows and astrophysics. Figure 2 shows the classic spike and bubble flow structures characteristic of R-T instability produced by two fluids of different density mixing, taken from Cook et al. [13].

Figure 2   Rayleigh-Taylor instability, from Cook et al. [13]. The heavy fluid is in black

The second instability in buoyant plumes is the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability related to the shear-layer interface between the rising plume and the ambient fluid. This forms axisymmetric roll-up vortex sheets on the boundary between the two layers of fluid travelling at different velocities, and is a feature in practically all turbulent shear flows including jets and wakes.

There is some uncertainty over the relative significance of the R-T and K-H instabilities in buoyant plumes. Buckmaster & Peters [14], Ghoniem et al. [15], Coats [16], and Albers & Agrawal [17] have suggested that the K-H instability plays the dominant role in plumes whilst others, including DesJardin et al. [1] , Tieszen et al. [2] and Cetegen & Kasper [18], suggest that the R-T instability is more important. For more details of the instability mechanisms and the transition to turbulence in buoyant flows, see also Gebhart et al. [19].

The Puffing Cycle

Medium to large scale plumes are characterised by the repetitive shedding of coherent vortical structures at a well-defined frequency, a phenomenon known as “puffing”. DesJardin et al. [1] present a detailed analysis of the plume puffing cycle, which they decompose into a number of stages. In the first stage, the less-dense plume fluid is rising close to the plume axis. Near the base of the plume, there is a layer of dense air overlying the less-dense plume fluid. There are two instabilities near the edge of the plume: one related to the misalignment of the vertical pressure-gradient and radial density gradient (the baroclinic torque) and another due to the misalignment of the vertical gravity and the radial density gradient (the gravitational torque). These produce a rotational moment on the fluid, increasing its vorticity and pulling air into the plume. The fluid motion coalesces to produce a large toroidal vortex which is self-propagated vertically upwards. As the vortex shifts vertically, fluid is pumped through to the core of the plume resulting in higher velocities on the plume axis. Radial velocities are induced near the base of the plume and air is drawn in producing an unstable stratification of denser fluid above less-dense fluid, ready for the cycle to begin again.

Using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), Jiang & Luo [20] [21] found that the gravitational torque is responsible for much of the initial production of vorticity in plumes. The term is highest towards the edge of the plume where the density gradient vector is pointing radially outwards at right-angles to the gravitational vector. The baroclinic torque was found to dominate the vorticity transport once the puffing structure has been established.

The toroidal vortex structure produced in small puffing plumes of helium in air, with a source diameter of under 10 cm, is relatively coherent. As the size of the plume is increased, the strength of secondary azimuthal instabilities increase which destabilize the toroidal vortex, producing finger-like instabilities. These are shown clearly near the base of the plume in the LES of DesJardin et al. [1] (see Figure 3). The secondary instabilities generate streamwise vorticity that enhances the mixing process. DesJardin et al. suggest that capturing these instabilities may be important in numerical simulations of pool fires where combustion is predominantly mixing-controlled.

Figure 3  An instantaneous snapshot of the puff cycle from DesJardin et al. [1] showing the finger-like azimuthal instabilities near the base of the plume. The isocontour of streamwise vorticity is shown at ±10% of the peak value.

Review of UFR studies and choice of test case

Front Page

Description

Test Case Studies

Evaluation

Best Practice Advice

References

Contributed by: Simon Gant — UK Health & Safety Laboratory

© copyright ERCOFTAC 2010