A Water Model Study of Impinging Gas Jets on Liquid Surfaces

Water modeling experiments were designed to observe the deformation of a liquid surface by impinging the gas jet. Video images were taken and processed in a systematic way. The important surface cavity parameters, such as depth, width, and their frequency of oscillation, were obtained. The relation between surface depression depth and the supplied gas momentum were consistent with previous findings and were extended to higher flow rates. The surface instability and the onset of splashing were observed and interpreted with the Blowing number. The wave behaviors were described qualitatively with a combination of photographic evidence and power spectral density analysis to extract the characteristic wave numbers for each gas flow rate. The analysis of the time series of the surface variables showed a connection to the attenuation of turbulence gas pressure fluctuation and the surface deformation by the gas impingement. Bath velocities were measured with a particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. To quantify the transfer of kinetic energy from the gas to the liquid, an energy transfer index was defined and calculated with the PIV data. The index was insensitive to gas flow rate but increased with cavity width. The momentum transfer across the interface was also analyzed, and a similar cavity width dependence was found. A correlation between the cavity shape and momentum transfer was proposed.