Hydrodynamics and dilution of an oil jet in crossflow: The role of small-scale motions from laboratory experiment and large eddy simulations

Abstract

Experimental results were presented for the release of diesel oil from a one-inch (2.5 cm) vertical pipe in a crossflow at 0.27 m/s. The ratio of jet velocity to crossflow speed was 5.0 and the Reynolds number based on jet velocity and pipe diameter was 7.1×103. In the experiments, the plume shape was photographed, and the oil droplets were measured at two vertical locations on the center axis of the plume. Acoustic Doppler velocimetry (ADV) data was also obtained and compared to numerical predictions. The plume was simulated using large eddy simulation (LES), and the mixture multiphase model. The impact of the oil buoyancy was captured by adding a transport term to the volume fraction equation. Using the rise velocity based on d50 (volume-median) droplet size in the lower part of the plume allowed us to capture the lower boundary of the plume, but the estimated upper boundary of the plume penetrated less into the crossflow as compared to the experimental findings. However, using the rise velocity of the d50 at the upper part of the plume allowed one to estimate the upper boundary of the plume. As the droplets are too small to be resolved by the LES, we could not use a systematic approach to allow the multiphase plume to spread to mimic the observations. Based on the simulation results, the interaction between the jet and crossflow yielded small-sized flow structures near the upper boundary of the plume. The wake vortices initiated from the leeward side of the plume showed an alternating vorticity pattern in the wake. The shear layer vortices were induced by Kevin-Helmholtz instabilities mostly on the windward side of the plume. The formation of counter rotating vortex pair (CVP) altered greatly the hydrodynamics of the jet from that of a vertical jet to manifest flow reversals in all directions. The formation of CVP is likely to enhance the mixing of chemicals and droplets within the plume.