Flow Past Two Cylinders Arranged in Tandem Within a Microbubble Plume

This study investigates the flow past two cylinders arranged in tandem within a microbubble plume inside a tank. Microbubbles with a mean diameter of 0.055 mm are released by water electrolysis from electrodes placed at the bottom of the tank. Upon rising, these microbubbles induce an upward water flow around them due to buoyancy. Orthogonally to the axis of this microbubble plume, two cylinders with a diameter D of 30 mm are arranged in tandem. The distance between the cylinders, L, ranges between 1.5D and 3D. The bubbles and the water flow around the cylinders are visualized, and the bubble velocity distribution is measured. The experiments reveal the water and bubble shear layers originating at the sides of the lower cylinder, and allow the elucidation of their behavior around the upper cylinder. Furthermore, this study makes clear the effects of L on the flow around the two cylinders, such as the stagnant bubbly flow and the bubbly wake.

Entrainment of Air at the Transoms of Full-Scale Surface Ships

We report on the results from a series of full-scale trials designed to quantify the air entrainment at the stern of an underway vessel. While an extremely complex region to model air entrainment due to the confluence of the breaking transom wave, bubbles from the bow, turbulence from the hull boundary layer, and bubbles and turbulence from propellers, the region is a desirable area to characterize and understand because it serves as the initial conditions of a ship's far-field bubbly wake. Experiments were conducted in 2003 from R/V Revelle and 2004 from R/VAthena II using a custombuilt conductivity probe vertical array that could be deployed at the blunt transom of a full-scale surface ship to measure the void fraction field. The system was designed to be rugged enough to withstand the full speed range of the vessels. From the raw timeseries data, the entrainment of air at speeds ranging from 2.1 to 7.2 m/s is computed at various depths and beam locations. The data represent the first such in-situ measurements from a full-scale vessel and can be used to validate two-phase ship hydrodynamic CFD codes and initialize far-field, bubbly wake CFD models.