ABSTRACT
Bubble plumes, or in general any plumes consisting of an immiscible dispersed phase, appear in many applications important for environmental fluid dynamics. Bubble plumes have been used to contain contaminants, aerate wastewater, prevent ice from forming in harbors, and act as breakwaters for waves. To manage water quality in lakes and reservoirs, bubble plumes are used to oxygenate deep water or to destroy the stratification that can prevent oxygen transport to the deep water. Other applications of multiphase plumes are related to energy use and climate change: The Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010 provides a notorious, spectacular example of an oil-well blowout. Plumes of liquid carbon dioxide are used to sequester carbon in the deep ocean, and recently, researchers have studied the release of methane, a greenhouse gas, from water bodies to the atmosphere. In this chapter, we outline the fluid mechanics of multiphase plumes and experimental and computational approaches toward studying their behavior, and we discuss example applications and challenges to be addressed.
