Author(s): J. Buhler; D. A. Papantoniou
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Abstract: A suspension thermal can be produced by suddenly releasing a large number of dense particles into a fluid body. The resulting cloud entrains ambient fluid and keeps slowing down as it sinks, so that the particles will eventually fall out through its lower rim due to their settling velocity. As the particles keeps sinking, their downward velocity becomes much greater than that of the fluid between them, and much of the fluid set in motion by the buoyancy of the release is leaving the particle cluster through its upper rim. This later stage of the flow is examined here, and two mechanisms are proposed which produce a growth rate of 3-d clusters with the cube root of time (or of the distance from the source). It is also noted that this flow stage may come to an end when the particles have drifted so far apart that their wakes no longer interact within the cluster.
Year: 1995