Numerical study of submerged vertical plane jets under progressive water surface waves

When wastewater is discharged into a coastal area through an outfall system, it will always be subjected to the action of waves. It is important to study and quantify the mixing of the discharge with the ambient water so that accurate environmental impact assessment can be made for such discharge conditions. The present work aims to study the phenomenon of a plane jet discharged into water environment with regular waves. A 3D numerical model based on the full Navier-Stokes equations (NSE) in the sigma-coordinate is developed to study the present problem. Turbulence effects are modeled by a subgrid-scale (SGS) model using the concept of large eddy simulation (LES). The operator splitting method is used to solve the modified NSE. The model has been applied to the simulation of three different cases of submerged plane jets with surface waves: jet with strong waves, jet with weak waves and jet without waves. Numerical results show that the waves enhance the mixing of the jet with the ambient fluid, and cause a periodic deflection of the jet. The size of the recirrulation is about 1.5 similar to 2.4 h (water depth). The velocity profile of the jet is self-similar in the zone of established flow for both the pure jet and jet in wave circumstances. The spreading characteristic constant a is 0. 100 and 0. 105 for pure momentum jets with Re numbers 1025 and 2050. The value of alpha increases fiom 0. 130 to 0. 147 for a jet in weak and strong wave circumstances, showing that waves have an obvious effect on the mixing and dilution properties of jets. Numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental data for the cases of pure jets and jets with waves.