Thermal dispersion from a line source in the shearless turbulence mixing layer

We experimentally investigate dispersion from a heated line source placed in the central region of a turbulence mixing layer. Recently described by Veeravalli & Warhaft (1989) the mixing layer has no mean shear and consists of gradients in the velocity variance and scale; it is formed from a composite grid of constant solidity from which two distinct velocity scales are formed, one on either side of the stream. Mixing is effected by intermittent turbulent penetration and diffusion. The dispersion measurements were carried out in the convective regime where both plume flapping and fine-scale turbulent mixing play a role, the latter becoming more dominant as the plume evolves. The mean and variance temperature profiles are strongly skewed (with larger tails on the low turbulence side of the flow) in the earlier stages of the plume development. Here, in the convective range, the median and peak of the mean plume are deflected toward the large-scale region. As the flow evolves the profiles become more symmetrical but as the plume enters the turbulent diffusive stage there is evidence that the profiles again became asymmetric but now with longer tails in the high turbulence side of the flow (owing to the higher diffusivity). The temperature variance and heat flux budgets are highly asymmetric but tend to exhibit many of the characteristics of the budget of a line source in decaying homogeneous grid turbulence which is also presented here. However, a distinct region of negative production (counter-gradient heat flux) is found in the temperature variance budget and this is shown to be a consequence of the asymmetry of the transverse velocity probability density function in the mixing layer. Temperature spectra, both of the time series and of the intermittency function, across the plume are described. They are shown to peak at high wavenumbers in the centre and edge of the plume and at lower wavenumbers in the intermediate region. Their form is shown to change as the plume develops fine-scale structure and flapping becomes less important.