PhD Project

Student

Emily Kruger   DAMTP

Industrial supervisor

Dr. Gabriel Rooney

Funding

EPSRC iCASE award

Industrial sponsor

Met Office

This project aims to investigate the dynamics of the descent and spread of localised, negatively buoyant flows, in parameter ranges relevant to convective downdraughts. This will be carried out by a combination of laboratory, analytical and numerical techniques.

Particular aspects to consider are the entrainment processes and the influence of vortex stretching in the impact region, and the effect of source characteristics on the speed and structure of the spreading flow. The influence of surface characteristics (e.g. varying roughness) will also be investigated. Detailed experiments using novel methods of flow visualisation will allow features such as secondary-vortex generation to be examined in detail.

Studies will concentrate firstly on the case of release in a still environment. The influence of an ambient wind will, however, also be considered.

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Dynamics of the impact of convective downdraughts.