Stability of planar buoyant jets in stratified fluids

Samuel P. Schofield; Juan M. Restrepo

doi:10.1063/1.3415493

Stability of planar buoyant jets in stratified fluids

Samuel P. Schofield, Juan M. Restrepo

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider the flow structure and stability of a planar saline jet descending into a stable, density-stratified fluid. The jet exhibits a rapid acceleration on release, then deceleration, as it encounters the more dense surrounding fluid, yet retains its slender shape due to the low salt diffusion. As the jet descends it entrains fresher water which as it encounters the increasingly dense ambient fluid returns toward the nozzle forming a recirculation zone. Our numerical simulations agree qualitatively with previous experiments and thus serve as a tool to explain the basic kinematics of the jet. We also use numerical means to capture the three instability modes: an antisymmetric instability in the jet core, a symmetric instability in the jet core, and a symmetric instability in the entrained conduit of less saline water. For the dominant antisymmetric instability we determine the range of parameters that demarcate stable and unstable regions.

Original language	English
Article number	054004PHF
Pages (from-to)	1-12
Number of pages	12
Journal	Physics of Fluids
Volume	22
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3415493
State	Published - May 2010
Externally published	Yes

Funding

S.S. was supported by a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. J.R. was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Grant No. DMS0335360, as well as a Department of Energy grant (Grant No. DE-FG02-03ER25577). J.R. thanks the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, where some of this work was done. We thank R. Goldstein for his interest in our work and providing us with experimental details on the Hele-Shaw experiment and the referees for suggesting ways of improving the paper.

Funders	Funder number
Department of Energy Computational Science
National Science Foundation	DMS0335360
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-FG02-03ER25577

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abstract = "We consider the flow structure and stability of a planar saline jet descending into a stable, density-stratified fluid. The jet exhibits a rapid acceleration on release, then deceleration, as it encounters the more dense surrounding fluid, yet retains its slender shape due to the low salt diffusion. As the jet descends it entrains fresher water which as it encounters the increasingly dense ambient fluid returns toward the nozzle forming a recirculation zone. Our numerical simulations agree qualitatively with previous experiments and thus serve as a tool to explain the basic kinematics of the jet. We also use numerical means to capture the three instability modes: an antisymmetric instability in the jet core, a symmetric instability in the jet core, and a symmetric instability in the entrained conduit of less saline water. For the dominant antisymmetric instability we determine the range of parameters that demarcate stable and unstable regions.",

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Stability of planar buoyant jets in stratified fluids

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