BACKLIT IMAGING OF A CIRCULAR PLUNGING JET WITH FLOOR INTERACTIONS

Plunging jets occur when a liquid stream enters a slower moving or stationary liquid body after first passing through a gaseous region. The most commonly studied plunging jet structure is that of water entering water. Plunging jets have been studied in order to understand and model mixing and transport from the atmosphere into the liquid. Shear forces at the edge of the jet cause air entrainment both in the free jet and at the impact point on the pool surface. Plunging jet applications range from large scale environments, such as ocean waves, waterfalls, wastewater treatment, and dams, to small scale environments, such as liquid-gas fuel mixing, mineral separation, and molten metal pouring. The majority of the literature today involve facilities designed to approximate an infinite liquid pool; few of these studies take into account the compression effects prevalent in several of the real systems. Therefore, a tank has been developed for the visualization of plunging jet flows with varying pool depth. This study involved the creation of a 32 cm by 32 cm, 91.4 cm deep rectangular acrylic tank with an interior adjustable acrylic bottom for the visualization of plunging jet flows with bottom compression effects. The pool height was held constant using a secondary tank with an overflow weir. In this study highspeed backlit images were taken of the plunging jet region. Preliminary results indicate that there is a significant change in both the shape and estimated entrained air volume when the plunging jet is subjected to compression effects. This is attributed to the plate spreading the bubble plume and allowing for easier bubble rise.