Numerical simulation of warm discharge in cold fresh water

Buoyant plumes in cold fresh water are of interest because of the possibility of buoyancy reversal due to the nonlinear relation between temperature and density in water. Thus an initially rising plume may become a fountain. This project aims to mathematically model such plumes and fountains using numerical simulation by the means of a commercial software, Comsol Multiphysics. Both turbulent and lam- inar cases were investigated in different geometries, and with the assumption that density is a quadratic function of temperature. The turbulent flow cases as con- sidered here in this thesis are relevant to practical applications such as industrial discharge in cold lakes: whereas, the laminar flow case relates to laboratory experi- ments which are typically at scales too small for the flow to be turbulent. Previous investigation on warm discharge placed more attention on the biological implications of the spread along the lake bed, and not interested in analysing the dynamics of such flow, which turns out to be our focus. Furthermore, investigations on buoyant plumes that become negatively buoyant at later time (fountain flow) as considered previously, are based on the assumption that density is a linear function of tem- perature: where entrainment always reduces buoyancy. Whereas, the consideration of the temperature of maximum density is crucial and realistic in many practical situations, especially the power station warm discharge. Mixing is then bound to produce a mixture that is denser than both the discharge and the ambient water if receiving water is less than Tm: where this situation differs from plumes with linear mixing properties. Therefore, our focus is to better fathom the behaviour of warm discharge so as to give a detailed description of the flow, and also to observe buoyancy reversal whenever water that is denser than both the discharge and the receiving water is produced. The simulations were carried out for Prandtl number Pr = 7 & 11.4 and over the ranges of Froude number 0.1 ≤ Fr ≤ 5 and Reynolds numbers 50 ≤ Re ≤ 106, with source temperatures that are assumed to be higher than the temperature of maximum density Tm, and the ambient water below the Tm. Our results show some distinct behaviours from those experimental investigations by Bukreev, who also considered warm discharge where water that has temperature above the temperature Tm is initiated into a medium below Tm. The results here also showed some differences from those investigations with the linear dependence relation assumption.