Submerged Fountains Impinging on a Smooth Horizontal Surface

DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2005.AustHeatMassTransfConf.140
4 pages

Charles J. Lemckert
School of Engineering, Griffith University, Southport, Queensland, 4215, Australia

Abstract

Fountains flows (also known as negatively buoyant jets) develop when a light fluid is injected vertically downwards into a denser miscible ambient. Experiments were performed to examine the radius of these submerged circular vertical fountains when they impinged on a smooth horizontal surface. It was observed that when the core of the fountain impacted on the surface it deflected and spread radially along the surface before the influence of negative buoyancy caused it to detach from the surface and flow back around the core as a buoyant annular plume. The outer radius of the outer fountain was found to be a function of the source Froude number and the dimensionless ratio of the source to nozzle distance and the source radius, but not a function of the distance from the source. The core radius was found to increase with distance from the source virtual origin.