A STOCHASTIC BUBBLE GENERATOR FOR AIR-WATER FLOW RESEARCH

Abstract

Highly turbulent free-surface flows are often characterized by air entrainment, resulting in considerable flow bulking and a modulation of energy dissipation. An understanding of air-water flows remains constrained by instrumentation limitations, scale effects and few analytical developments. Whereas past attempts have addressed air-water flow research from a deterministic point of view, this work expands recent studies by developing a three-dimensional stochastic model for the simulation of bubble kinematics. The model is based on mean and turbulent velocity properties of turbulent boundary layers, being of interest for the study of aerated free-surface flows and the validation of measurement instrumentation. A verification of the code is presented, accompanied by a discussion of limitations and future research opportunities.