Mixing induced by a bubble swarm rising through incident turbulence

Abstract

This work describes an experimental investigation on the mixing induced by a swarm of high Reynolds number air bubbles rising through a nearly homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flow. The gas volume fraction $α$ and the velocity fluctuations $u'_0$ of the carrier flow before bubble injection are varied, respectively, in the ranges $0\leq α\leq 0.93\%$ and 2.3 cm/s $\leq u'_0 \leq 5.5$ cm/s, resulting in a variation of the bubblance parameter $b$ in the range [0, 1.3] ($b = \frac{V_r^2 α}{{u'}_0^2}$, where $V_r$ is the relative rising velocity). Mixing in the horizontal direction can be modelled as a diffusive process, with an effective diffusivity $D_{xx}$. Two different diffusion regimes are observed experimentally, depending on the turbulence intensity. At low turbulence levels, $D_{xx}$ increases with gas volume fraction $α$, while at high turbulence levels the enhancement in $D_{xx}$ is negligible. When normalizing by the time scale of successive bubble passage, the effective diffusivity can be modelled as a sole function of the gas volume fraction $α^* \equiv α/α_c$, where $α_c$ is a theoretically estimated critical gas volume fraction. The present explorative study provides insights into modeling the mixing induced by high Reynolds number bubbles in turbulent flows.

8 pages, 6 figures (submitted manuscript)