Self-Preserving Properties of Unsteady Round Buoyant Turbulent Plumes and Thermals in Still Fluids

The self-preserving properties of round buoyant turbulent starting plumes and starting jets in unstratified environments. The experiments involved dye-containing salt water sources injected vertically downward into still fresh water within a windowed tank. Time-resolved images of the flows were obtained using a CCD camera. Experimental conditions were as follows: source diameters of 3.2 and 6.4 mm, source/ambient density ratios of 1.070 and 1.150, source Reynolds numbers of 4,000–11,000, source Froude numbers of 10–82, volume of source fluid for thermals comprising cylinders having the same cross-sectional areas as the source exit and lengths of 50–382 source diameters, and streamwise flow penetration lengths up to 110 source diameters and 5.05 Morton length scales from the source. Near-source flow properties varied significantly with source properties but the flows generally became turbulent and then became self-preserving within 5 and 20–30 source diameters from the source, respectively. Within the self-preserving region, both normalized streamwise penetration distances and normalized maximum radial penetration distances as functions of time were in agreement with the scaling relationships for the behavior of self-preserving round buoyant turbulent flows to the following powers: time to the 3/4 power for starting plumes and to the 1/2 power for thermals. Finally, the virtual origins of thermals were independent of source fluid volume for the present test conditions.