Effect of solute transfer and interfacial instabilities on scalar and velocity field around a drop rising in quiescent liquid channel

Abstract

Physics of development of flow structures around the drop rising with solute transfer is highly influenced by the interfacial behaviour and is remarkably different than a particle rising under the same conditions. We report on the use of simultaneous particle image velocimetry-planar laser induced fluorescence technique to measure scalar and velocity fields around a drop rising in a quiescent liquid channel. The selected continuous phase is glycerol, and the drop consists of a mixture of toluene, acetone, and a dye rhodamine-6G, with acetone working as a interfacial tension depressant. The drop lies in the spherical region with Eötvös number, Eo = 1.95, Morton number, M = 78.20 and the particle Reynolds number being, Rep = 0.053. With Rep approaching that of creeping flow, we analyse the effect of interfacial instabilities solely, contrary to other investigations [M. Wegener et al., “Impact of Marangoni instabilities on the fluid dynamic behaviour of organic droplets,” Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 52, 2543-2551 (2009); S. Burghoff and E. Y. Kenig, “A CFD model for mass transfer and interfacial phenomena on single droplets,” AIChE J. 52, 4071-4078 (2006); J. Wang et al., “Numerical simulation of the Marangoni effect on transient mass transfer from single moving deformable drops,” AIChE J. 57, 2670-2683 (2011); R. F. Engberg, M. Wegener, and E. Y. Kenig, “The impact of Marangoni convection on fluid dynamics and mass transfer at deformable single rising droplets—A numerical study,” Chem. Eng. Sci. 116, 208-222 (2014)] which account for turbulence as well as interfacial instabilities with Rep in the turbulent range. The velocity and concentration fields obtained are subjected to scale-wise energy decomposition using continuous wavelet transform. Scale-wise probability distribution functions of wavelet coefficients are calculated to check intermittent non-Gaussian behaviour for simultaneous velocity and scalar statistics. Multi-fractal singularity spectra for scalar and velocity fields are calculated using wavelet transform modulus maxima methodology to analyse the distribution of non-Gaussian flow structures and their effect on scalar transport. Further, Fourier spectra based on velocity and concentration are also reported. We found that vorticity and concentration fields became progressively non-Gaussian, as one moved from large scales to small scales. This turbulence like behaviour is attributed to interfacial instabilities developed because of the non-uniform shear at the interface. The multi-fractal singularity spectra had their Hurst exponent H > 0.5, which showed high correlation in the hierarchy of the flow structures. A strong correlation between concentration and velocity multi-fractal spectra was also seen.