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Inclined gravity currents filling basins: the impact of peeling detrainment on transport and vertical structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

Charlie A. R. Hogg Open the ORCID record for Charlie A. R. Hogg [Opens in a new window] ,
Stuart B. Dalziel ,
Herbert E. Huppert  and
Jörg Imberger
Charlie A. R. Hogg*
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, CambridgeCB3 0WA, UK Bob and Norma Street Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA
Stuart B. Dalziel
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, CambridgeCB3 0WA, UK
Herbert E. Huppert
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, CambridgeCB3 0WA, UK School of Mathematics, University of New South Wales, Kensington NSW 2052, Australia Faculty of Science, University of Bristol, Bristol BS2 6BB, UK
Jörg Imberger
Affiliation:
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL, 33149, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: chogg@cantab.net
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Abstract

Transport of dense fluid by an inclined gravity current can control the vertical density structure of the receiving basin in many natural and industrial settings. A case familiar to many is a lake fed by river water that is dense relative to the lake water. In laboratory experiments, we pulsed dye into the basin inflow to visualise the transport pathway of the inflow fluid through the basin. We also measured the evolving density profile as the basin filled. The experiments confirmed previous observations that when the turbulent gravity current travelled through ambient fluid of uniform density, only entrainment into the dense current occurred. When the gravity current travelled through the stratified part of the ambient fluid, however, the outer layers of the gravity current outflowed from the current by a peeling detrainment mechanism and moved directly into the ambient fluid over a large range of depths. The prevailing model of a filling box flow assumes that a persistently entraining gravity current entrains fluid from the basin as the current descends to the deepest point in the basin. This model, however, is inconsistent with the transport pathway observed in visualisations and poorly matches the stratifications measured in basin experiments. The main contribution of the present work is to extend the prevailing filling box model by incorporating the observed peeling detrainment. The analytical expressions given by the peeling detrainment model match the experimental observations of the density profiles more closely than the persistently entraining model. Incorporating peeling detrainment into multiprocess models of geophysical systems, such as lakes, will lead to models that better describe inflow behaviour.

JFM classification

Convection: Buoyant boundary layers Convection: Convection Geophysical and Geological Flows: Gravity currents
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 820 , 10 June 2017 , pp. 400 - 423
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Copyright
© 2017 Cambridge University Press 

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Hogg et al. supplementary movie

Visualisation of transport during basin filling. Pulses of dye were injected into the constant buoyancy flux source.

Download Hogg et al. supplementary movie(Video)
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