Experiments on Entrainment, Mixing and Chemical Reactions in Turbulent Jets at Large Schmidt Number

Citation

Dahm, Werner Johann Anton (1985) Experiments on Entrainment, Mixing and Chemical Reactions in Turbulent Jets at Large Schmidt Number. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/k93g-jh12. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-12062006-104125

Abstract

Entrainment, mixing and chemical reactions are investigated in the far field of steady, axisymmetric, momentum-driven, turbulent jets issuing into an unconfined, quiescent medium in the large Schmidt number (liquid-phase) regime. Visualization experiments using both passive and chemically sensitive planar laser induced fluorescence (LIF) techniques show the importance of large scale transport in the jet far field, and suggest that entrainment, mixing and chemical reactions in the far field are dominated by a large scale organization of the flow. Successive instantaneous profiles of the jet fluid concentration along the axial and radial directions in the jet far field are measured by combining these LIF techniques with direct, high-resolution, linear photodiode array imaging and high-speed digital data acquisition. These imaging measurements have revealed an axial similarity concentration variable for which probability density functions (PDFs) in the jet far field are self-similar along rays. A chemical reaction method is presented which allows the self-similar form of these PDFs to be measured with full resolution at all scales of transport and mixing. Furthermore, these imaging measurements have shown that instantaneous radial profiles of the jet fluid concentration do not resemble the mean concentration profile. Specifically, unmixed ambient fluid is found deep within the jet and the composition of molecularly mixed fluid within large regions in the jet is approximately uniform. The results from these experiments are interpreted in the context of a simple conceptual model for large scale organization of entrainment, mixing and chemical reactions in the far field of turbulent jets.

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