Experiments on the rise and mixing in neutral crossflow of plumes from two identical sources for different wind directions

A study of the mixing phase of two identical buoyant plumes emitted from adjacent sources into a neutral cross-flow is presented. Results were obtained in a water towing-tank by using both quantitative plume visualisations and point concentration detection with a colorimeter system. Plume trajectories and cross-sectional distributions of concentration were obtained for different flow directions, φ, with respect to the source axis and for two stack separations. Particular attention has been given to the influence of φ on plume trajectories during the mixing phase and to the changes in the shape of the plume cores, induced during the mixing, that influence the rate of entrainment of ambient fluid. The results show that the additional rise, E, of the combined plume decreases almost linearly with sin(φ) when φ is increased, and vanishes when φ is around 20–30°; thereafter, E becomes negative, due to the presence of a form of “induced downwash” effect. The rise reduction is a consequence of the complex and protracted mixing of two vortices of opposite vorticity that creates strong asymmetry in the concentration distribution within the plume core, resulting in an accumulation of plume material at the bottom of the combined plume and a consequent decrease of the height of the centre of mass of the combined plume. There is clear evidence that the asymmetry slowly diminishes during plume development, so that at large distance from the mixing zone the concentration distribution becomes similar to that of a single plume with a characteristic double-vortex structure, though this develops with a deficit in plume rise. Results also show that the average dilution over a cross-section of the plume increases with φ and, when φ reaches 90°, becomes approximately equal to that in a single plume, even though the actual tracer distribution is quite different, particularly at short distances from the sources.