Turbulent mixing and entrainment in a gravity current
Conference
·
OSTI ID:1022066
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- ENS-LYON, FRANCE
- PURDUE UNIV.
We present an experimental study of the mixing processes in a gravity current. The turbulent transport of momentum and buoyancy can be described in a very direct and compact form by a Prandtl mixing length model: the turbulent vertical fluxes of momentum and buoyancy are found to scale quadratically with the vertical mean gradients of velocity and density. The scaling coefficient is the square of the mixing lenth, approximately constant over the mixing zone of the stratified shear layer. We show how, in different flow configurations, this length can be related to the shear length of the flow ({var_epsilon}/{partial_derivative}{sub z}u{sup 3}){sup 1/2}. We also study the fluctuations of the momentum and density turbulent fluxes, showing how they relate to the mixing phenomena, and to the entrainment/detrainment balance.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1022066
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-04494; LA-UR-10-4494
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Mixing lengths scaling in a gravity flow
Shallow Cumulus Entrainment Dynamics in a Sheared Environment
The diurnal cycle of entrainment and detrainment in LES of the Southern Ocean driven by observed surface fluxes and waves
Conference
·
Wed Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2008
·
OSTI ID:991259
Shallow Cumulus Entrainment Dynamics in a Sheared Environment
Journal Article
·
Wed Nov 30 19:00:00 EST 2022
· Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
·
OSTI ID:2420535
The diurnal cycle of entrainment and detrainment in LES of the Southern Ocean driven by observed surface fluxes and waves
Journal Article
·
Thu Sep 30 20:00:00 EDT 2021
· Journal of Physical Oceanography
·
OSTI ID:1983023