Experimental study on radial gravity currents flowing in a vegetated channel

We present an experimental study of gravity currents in a cylindrical geometry, in the presence of vegetation. Forty tests were performed with a brine advancing in a fresh water ambient fluid, in lock release, and with a constant and time-varying flow rate. The tank is a circular sector of angle $30^circ$ with radius equal to 180 cm. Two different densities of the vegetation were simulated by vertical plastic rods with diameter $D=1.6; extrm{cm}$. We marked the height of the current as a function of radius and time and the position of the front as a function of time. The results indicate a self-similar structure, with lateral profiles that after an initial adjustment collapse to a single curve in scaled variables. The propagation of the front is well described by a power law function of time. The existence of self-similarity on an experimental basis corroborates a simple theoretical model with the following assumptions: (i) the dominant balance is between buoyancy and drag, parameterized by a power law of the current velocity $sim |u|^{lambda-1}u$; (ii) the current advances in shallow-water conditions; (iii) ambient-fluid dynamics is negligible. In order to evaluate the value of ${lambda}$ (the only tuning parameter of the theoretical model), we performed two additional series of measurements. We found that $lambda$ increased from 1 to 2 while the Reynolds number increased from 100 to approximately $6cdot10^3$, the drag coefficient and the transition from $lambda=1$ to $lambda=2$ are quantitatively affected by $D$, but the structure of the model is not

PROPAGATION OF GRAVITY CURRENTS OF NON-NEWTONIAN POWER-LAW FLUIDS IN POROUS MEDIA

A comprehensive analytical and experimental framework is presented to describe gravity-driven motions of rheologically complex fluids through porous media. These phenomena are relevant in geophysical, environmental, industrial and biological applications. The fluid is characterized by an Ostwald-DeWaele constitutive equation with behaviour index n. The flow is driven by the release of fluid at the origin of an infinite porous domain. In order to represent several possible spreading scenarios, we consider: i) different domain geometries: plane, radial, and channelized, with the channel shape parameterized by ; ii) instantaneous or continuous injection, depending on the time exponent of the volume of fluid in the current, ; iii) horizontal or inclined impermeable boundaries. Systematic heterogeneity along the streamwise and/or transverse direction is added to the conceptualization upon considering a power-law permeability variation governed by two additional parameters  and . Scalings for current length and thickness are derived in self similar form coupling the modified Darcy’s law accounting for the fluid rheology with the mass balance equation. The speed, thickness, and aspect ratio of the current are studied as a function of model parameters; several different critical values of  emerge and govern the type of dependency, as well as the tendency of the current to accelerate or decelerate and become thicker or thinner at a given point. The asymptotic validity of the solutions is limited to certain ranges of model parameters. Experimental validation is performed under constant volume, constant and variable flux regimes in tanks/channels filled with transparent glass beads of uniform or variable diameter, using shear-thinning suspensions and Newtonian mixtures. The experimental results for the length and profile of the current agree well with the self-similar solutions at intermediate and late times

Porous gravity currents: A survey to determine the joint influence of fluid rheology and variations of medium properties

We develop a model to grasp the combined effect of rheology and spatial stratifications on two- dimensional non-Newtonian gravity-driven flow in porous media. We consider a power-law constitutive equation for the fluid, and a monomial variation of permeability and porosity along the vertical direction (transverse to the flow) or horizontal direction (parallel to the flow). Under these assumptions, similar- ity solutions are derived in semi-analytical form for thin gravity currents injected into a two-dimensional porous medium and having constant or time-varying volume. The extent and shape of the porous domain affected by the injection is significantly influenced by the interplay of model parameters. These describe the fluid (flow behaviour index n ), the spatial heterogeneity (coefficients β, γ, δ, ω for variations of per- meability and porosity in the horizontal or vertical direction), and the type of release (volume exponent α). Theoretical results are validated against two sets of experiments with α= 1 (constant inflow) con- ducted with a stratified porous medium (simulated by superimposing layers of glass beads of different diameter) and a Hele-Shaw analogue for power-law fluid flow, respectively. In the latter case, a recently established Hele-Shaw analogy is extended to the variation of properties parallel to the flow direction. Comparison with experimental results shows that the proposed model is able to capture the propagation of the current front and the current profile

Invariants of Turbulence Reynolds Stress and of Dissipation Tensors in Regular Breaking Waves

A series of measurements in a flume with a particle-tracking system in three dimensions applied to breaking waves is used to analyse the structure of turbulence with a full set of variables that usually are available only in numerical simulations. After extracting turbulence, in addition to the standard analysis aiming to quantify the fluxes, i.e., the time-average and the phase-average levels of turbulence and vorticity (details are given in two former papers), a more in-depth description of the structure of turbulence Reynolds stress tensor is given, focussing on the invariants evolution in time and in the vertical. A relation between the components of the Reynolds stress tensor and of the dissipation tensor is depicted. This relation is finalised to possible models of turbulence in breaking waves

Wave-current interaction in the Porto di Lido entrance of the Venice Lagoon

Water Qualit

Buoyancy transfer in a two-layer system in transient and steady state. Experiments in a wave flume

Presentation in a conferenc

Strong turbulence and free surface interaction in a grid-stirred tank

In this work the experimental analysis of the interaction between turbulence and free surface is detailed. The topic is interesting in many natural flows and industrial processes. Turbulence is generated by a vertically oscillating grid moving beneath the free surface, as widely reported in several experiments. Fluid velocity is measured through a hot film anemometer. This instrument is able to measure vertical velocity fluctuation to within 0.5 mm of the surface, from which profiles of r.m.s. velocity fluctuation, integral length scales and several turbulence estimators can be calculated. The free surface elevation is measured by using an ultrasonic sensor based on flight-time with a response time of 10 milliseconds and an overall error equal to 0.2 mm The present analyses follow previous analyses on different data regarding some experiment carried out in a flume, with free surface turbulence generated by a Crump weir. In the experiments in the flume a relevant evidence of free surface waves suggested a separation between potential and turbulence contributions. Free surface waves seem almost not present in the grid stirred tank and a pure turbulent flow is forecast. Aiming to detect the source effects of turbulence near the free surface, the correlation between free surface elevation and the underneath flow velocity have been studied, and the time lag between turbulence and free surface has been evaluated. As observed in the Crump weir generated turbulence, resonance is expected with turbulence excited by free surface growing at a specific frequency of the grid

An Experimental Setup to Investigate Non-Newtonian Fluid Flow in Variable Aperture Channels

Non-Newtonian fluid flow in porous and fractured media is of considerable technical and environmental interest. Here, the flow of a non-Newtonian fluid in a variable aperture fracture is studied theoretically, experimentally and numerically. We consider a shear-thinning power-law fluid with flow behavior index n. The natural logarithm of the fracture aperture is a two-dimensional, spatially homogeneous and correlated Gaussian random field. An experimental device has been conceived and realized to allow the validation of the theory, and several tests are conducted with Newtonian and shear-thinning fluids and different combinations of parameters to validate the model. For Newtonian fluids, experimental results match quite well the theoretical predictions, mostly with a slight overestimation. For non-Newtonian fluids, the discrepancy between experiments and theory is larger, with an underestimation of the experimental flow rate. We bear in mind the high shear-rates involved in the experiments, covering a large range where simple models seldom are effective in reproducing the process, and possible interferences like slip at the wall. For all test conditions, the comparison between analytical and numerical model is fairly good