Surface tension effects on the behaviour of a rising bubble driven by buoyancy force

In the inviscid and incompressible fluid flow regime,surface tension effects on the behaviour of an initially spherical buoyancy-driven bubble rising in an infinite and initially stationary liquid are investigated numerically by a volume of fluid （VOF） method. The ratio of the gas density to the liquid density is 0.001, which is close to the case of an air bubble rising in water. It is found by numerical experiment that there exist four critical Weber numbers We1,~We2,~We3 and We4, which distinguish five different kinds of bubble behaviours. It is also found that when 1≤We2, the bubble will finally reach a steady shape, and in this case after it rises acceleratedly for a moment, it will rise with an almost constant speed, and the lower the Weber number is, the higher the speed is. When We 〉We2, the bubble will not reach a steady shape, and in this case it will not rise with a constant speed. The mechanism of the above phenomena has been analysed theoretically and numerically.

Viscoelastic modeling of the diffusion of polymeric pollutants injected into a pipe flow

This study focuses on the transient analysis of nonlinear dispersion of a polymeric pollutant ejected by an external source into a laminar pipe flow of a Newtonian liquid under axi-symmetric conditions.The influence of density variation with pollutant concentration is approximated according to the Boussinesq approximation and the nonlinear governing equations of momentum,pollutant concentration are obtained together with and Oldroyd-B constitutive model for the polymer stress.The problem is solved numerically using a semi-implicit finite difference method.Solutions are presented in graphical form for various parameter values and given in terms of fluid velocity,pollutant concentration,polymer stress components,skin friction and wall mass transfer rate.The model can be a useful tool in understanding the dynamics of industrial pollution situations arising from improper discharge of hydrocarbon pollutants into,say,water bodies.The model can also be quite useful for available necessary early warning methods for detecting or predicting the scale of pollution and hence help mitigate related damage downstream by earlier instituting relevant decontamination measures.

Three-dimensional prediction of reservoir water temperature by the lattice Boltzmann method: Validation

The water temperature stratification in large reservoirs might have serious ecological and environmental consequences. The modeling of the temperature distribution and its history is of great importance both for studying the underlying mechanisms and for controlling the adverse effects. To develop an effective and efficient method for simulation of temporal and spatial temperature variations, a lattice Boltzmann method（LBM） model for 3-D thermal buoyancy flows is proposed and validated by the temperature data measured in a model reservoir. This paper discusses important aspects of the LBM and its turbulence model, analyzes the gravity sinking mechanism of cold currents, and demonstrates the complexity of the temperature redistribution process. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results shows that the newly developed method is feasible and powerful, and it will be used for the water temperature prediction in actual reservoirs in a near future.