Front Propagation and Coiling Instabilities of Filamentary Gravitational Plumes

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract CTS-0079725 R. Goldstein, University of Arizona Instabilities of fluid motions represent a large and a fundamentally important branch of fluid dynamics. The PI has proposed to investigate a novel class of instabilities: those which occur in the narrow plumes of positively-or-negatively-buoyant fluid within a large body of the host fluid. The density gradients associated with the buoyancy permit schlieren observations of the plume behavior and this technique will be used to examine the coiling (or chiral) and the axisymmetric instabilities. These experiments will be correlated with theoretical considerations that are used to establish the parameters that will lead to the breakdown of the basic state.