Characterizing two inclined circular water jets plunging into an aeration tank

In this study, experiments were conducted to explore some properties of the bubble plumes of two inclined circular plunging water jets on a water surface in a cubic aeration tank. A particle image velocimetry (PIV) system was used to measure the two-phase jet velocities in both the lateral and axial positions. Other parameters of interest, such as gas holdup (epsilon(G)) penetration depths (z(p), m) and the height and width of the two-phase mixture due to the air entrainment, were also monitored. The value of bubble mean diameter (d(b), m) under each operating condition was determined by using images captured by the PIV system. The results of the normalized axial velocity for the gas and water jets showed a good mixing effect in the aeration tank. The results obtained under different plunging angles (alpha) showed that as d(o) increases, z(p) also increases. Furthermore, under the same d(o), z(p) at alpha = 75 degrees was found to be higher than the ones obtained under other cases. The combination of two inclined jets yielded a higher z(p) compared to that yielded by one inclined jet. The value of epsilon(G) was found to decrease as d(o) increased for the same liquid flow rate. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.