A Study of Spouts on Bath Surfaces from Gas Bubbling: Part II. Elucidation of Plume Dynamics

Quantitative information on the spout dimensions from Part I of this series of articles has been used to extract several critical parameters pertinent to gas-stirred ladles, viz. (1) the scaling criterion for the gas flow rate, (2) a unified representation of gas-liquid plumes from a macroscopic analysis, and (3) the volume- and area-averaged gas fractions and area-averaged gas and liquid velocities in the plume. Further, the issue of Froude similarity in gas-stirred systems is discussed and the proper form of the Froude number is justified from a fundamental viewpoint. The present model is simple and accurate enough to be used as a design tool for unconfined plumes, and the present methodology can be extended to the analysis of multiple plumes or those that interact with vessel walls.