Internal waves generated by thermals in stratified environments

THOMAS, LUIS P; MARINO, BEATRIZ M; DALZIEL, STUART B.

Rodas, Grecia

Conferencia; 6th IASME / WSEAS Int. Conf. on Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics (FMA'08); 2008

IASME / WSEAS

The internal waves generated by the motion of a small quantity of dense fluid released from rest in a stratified medium are studied. We present experimental results that show the evolution of the density distributions till the thermal reaches de bottom or an intermediate height where it spreads as an axial gravity current. The synthetic schlieren technique and the digital processing of the registered images allow obtaining good quality qualitative and quantitative information of the studied situation.