The planar flow of a light fluid into a surrounding heavier fluid is studied. The light fluid is released from the bottom through a vent, which may be at an angle and rises as a plume. It is removed at an upper permeable boundary, which is considered to be a horizontal surface, for simplicity. In the inviscid case, the plume approaches a steady-state configuration, which is well approximated by a one-dimensional asymptotic solution. The stability of the asymptotic solution is discussed. The viscous situation is modelled using Boussinesq theory and shows that entrainment of both fluids into the plume necessarily occurs, so that a steady-state configuration is not achieved. In both the viscous and the inviscid cases, the unsteady solutions are obtained using novel spectral techniques, and these are presented and discussed.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	plume, asymptotic theory, stability, spectral methods, Boussinesq approximation, vorticity
Research Division:	Engineering
Research Group:	Fluid mechanics and thermal engineering
Research Field:	Computational methods in fluid flow, heat and mass transfer (incl. computational fluid dynamics)
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the mathematical sciences
UTAS Author:	Forbes, LK (Professor Larry Forbes)
ID Code:	84548
Year Published:	2013
Web of Science® Times Cited:	3
Deposited By:	Mathematics and Physics
Deposited On:	2013-05-17
Last Modified:	2015-01-27
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