........ published in NEWSLETTER # 51
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........ published in NEWSLETTER # 51
FLUID MECHANICS OF TURBULENT JETS AND PLUMES
by Dr. P.A. Davies, University, Dundee (U.K.)
The purposes of the Workshop were (i) to review and integrate recent advances in the modelling and measurement of turbulent jets and plumes and (ii) to identify the future outstanding problems to be addressed in this area of research. To this end, scientists having relevant expertise in the disparate but related fields of meteorology, oceanography, applied mathematics, physics and engineering (areospace, civil, mechanical, chemical) were invited to participate, in order to profit from the interdisciplinary approach that was adopted. The primary criterion adopted for the keynote and contributing speakers at the Workshop was their scientific excellence and international reputation.
Challenging problems involving jet and plume phenomena are common to many areas of fundamental and applied scientific research. Dramatic progress has been made in the last 10 years in the modelling and measurement of turbulent jets and plumes and the renewed awareness of the pervasiveness of jet and plume phenomena has driven investigations in many new important areas of fundamental and applied research. For example, an increasing political commitment in the developed and developing world to the resolution of environmental issues has stimulated jet_ and plume_related research in the particular contexts of air and water pollution. Likewise, industrial developments (coupled with associated environmental constraints) continue to call for further improvements in performance of jet engine and propulsion systems. The further realisation that progress in understanding many previously_uninvestigated or unknown natural phenomena (for example, plumes associated with ice leads, oceanic deep convection, hydrothermal smokers, sediment and debris flows) calls for the incorporation of additional mechanisms associated with, for example, background rotation, stratification, spatial variations in stratification, topography, the nature of the equations of state and non_Boussinesq effects hitherto not specifically considered has influenced the direction of geophysically_ related research in the subject. The enormous range of space and time scales spanned in jet and plume problems in geophysical, environmental and industrial flows provides a rich variety of interesting and relevant phenomena to be investigated. In recent years, the Bhopal disaster has illustrated the human scale of the consequences of atmospheric plume behaviour. Likewise, the Kuwait oil fires have served to demonstrate the current limitations of many predictive models of plume dispersion and the need for more effective technology transfer. New technological challenges relating to the disposal in the deep ocean of, for example, CO2 contaminated sludge or radioactive waste continue to stimulate new avenues of research in the subject and to provoke further discussion of these and other issues of acute public concern.
A flavour of recent progress in addressing these issues is provided in the
book (NATO ASI SERIES E255). The current states of research in the particular areas of jet and plume modelling, wastewater disposal and geophysical applications of plume behaviour are stressed but the specific topics relevant to the general development of the subject are also included. The book constitutes an up_to_date review of the subject and provides a look towards the future challenges to be met by researchers in the field.
Reference books: E97, E255