Future challenges in environmental heat transfer - The density-stratified environment
Abstract
Buoyant forces play a key role in turbulent mixing both in the atmosphere and in the water environment. They may enhance the turbulence or inhibit it, and a measure of this ambivalent characteristic is the Richardson number of the motion. In general terms this nondimensional parameter measures the relative order of magnitude of the rate at which work is done by modification of the potential energy distribution to the rate at which turbulent kinetic energy is produced by fluid shear stresses. This paper discusses recent advances in the description of heat and mass transfer by turbulent mixing when buoyancy forces are a dominant factor, and shows how the Richardson number and Schmidt (or Peclet) numbers can define the character of the flow. Practical problems of consequence that need such information are discussed briefly in this context.
- Publication:
-
ASME, Heat Transfer Division. New York, American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- Pub Date:
- July 1988
- Bibcode:
- 1988asme.meet.....L
- Keywords:
-
- Heat Transfer;
- Plumes;
- Turbulent Mixing;
- Buoyancy;
- Kinetic Energy;
- Peclet Number;
- Potential Energy;
- Richardson Number;
- Schmidt Number;
- Shear Stress;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer