Gravity current fronts advancing along a heated wall

Abstract

The propagation of sustained Boussinesq gravity-current fronts along a heated wall is examined through laboratory experiments. The gravity currents are generated by continuously supplying a mixture of air and carbon dioxide at the inlet of a rectangular channel, while uniform wall heating is provided by resistive fabrics. In addition to the Froude number, defined either at the source (Fr_s) or at the current front (Fr), we show that the front velocity is governed by Λ_s, the ratio of the two buoyancy fluxes per unit area driving the flow: that generated by wall heating and that supplied at the inlet. As wall heating increases (i.e., as Λ_s increases), the current front propagates more slowly. This slowdown results from the direct heating of the current, which reduces the buoyancy of its head, and from the interaction between the front and the thermal plumes generated by natural convection downstream. In the most strongly heated experiments, the front eventually stops at a distance from the source that is inversely proportional to Λ_s. In these cases, the buoyancy of the head changes sign, and the head evolves into a positively buoyant plume whose vertical extent continues to increase. The experimental results are compared with predictions from a lumped analytical model describing the propagation and eventual arrest of the current.