Handbook of Environmental Fluid Dynamics, Volume One
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2013 CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Turbulent buoyant jets are a fundamental flow class in the natural and engineered environment and span the full asymptotic range of jet and plume behavior: round jets, line jets, momentum puffs, negative jets, round plumes, line plumes, and thermals. In summary, buoyant jets occur whenever fluid is discharged with an excess of or deficit in momentum and/or buoyancy through a constriction into a receiving fluid body. They occur in a whole host of applications, and we would like to quote Gerhard Jirka from his (2004) paper in the journal Environmental Fluid Mechanics where he outlined his view of the topic: Buoyant jet motions (sometimes called forced plumes) are prevalent in the natural environment and in engineering applications. They are most spectacular in volcanic gas eruptions, they occur as hydrothermal vent flows in the deep ocean or as fresh groundwater plumes in the coastal zone. They are a key feature in societys fluid waste disposal methods, be it in the form of gaseous emissions into the atmosphere from industrial and domestic smokestacks, from mobile exhausts and from cooling towers, or of liquid releases into water bodies from industrial, municipal and agricultural sources or mining and oil extraction operations. They are an integral part of building ventilation and air conditioning systems. And they play a central role as mixing and injection devices in chemical reactors, waste and sewage treatment plants, desalination plants, combustion chambers, jet engines, or heat exchangers as well as stratification control and oxygenation devices in lakes or reservoirs.
