Plume Mixing and Entrainment in Stratified Fluids (Zhi Lin, UNC-Chapel Hill)

Abstract: Plumes and jets are naturally and frequently occurring transport phenomena arising in a variety of settings. To balance a local density difference, viscosity couples and draws ambient fluid along with the plume/jet on its voyage (entrainment). If the parcel is miscible with the ambience, mixing will occur and accelerate the equilibration process.

In practice, if the ambient fluids are stratified, the plume dynamics are dramatically different, due to the existence of a very sharp transition layer. These modifications are crucial to environmental scientists because of the consequential trapping phenomena, in which discharged pollutants are confined away from mixing flows, and may lead to hazardous air and water quality.

The UNC Fluids Lab is currently conducting expriments and running numerical simulations, to evaluate, verify and further improve various existing mathematical models that tried to explain these phenomena.

This is an abstract of a poster to be presented at the 2004 SEAMS Workshop in Charleston, SC. For more information, visit the workshop's homepage at math.cofc.edu/SEAMS.