Boussinesq plumes and jets with decreasing source strengths in stratified environments

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The evolution of plumes and jets with sources whose driving flux decreases with time is considered in a stratified environment. Numerical calculations indicate that as the source buoyancy flux, for a Boussinesq plume (or source momentum flux, for a Boussinesq jet), is decreased, a transitional narrowing region with characteristic spreading angle tan-,(2a/3) is formed, where a is the well-known entrainment coe-cient. The plume or jet dynamics are modelled well by a separable solution to the governing equations which predicts stalling in the plume at a critical stall time ts = p/N and stalling in the jet at a critical stall time ts = p/(2N), where N is the buoyancy frequency of the ambient background stratification. This stall time is independent of the driving source conditions, a prediction which is verified by numerical solution of the underlying evolution equations.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: