Air entrainment in two-dimensional turbulent shear flows with partially developed inflow conditions

In plunging jet flows and at hydraulic jumps, large quantities of air are entrained at the intersection of the impinging flow and the receiving body of water. The air bubbles are entrained into a turbulent shear layer and strong interactions take place between the air bubble advection/diffusion process and the momentum shear region. New air-water flow experiments were conducted with two free shear layer flows: a vertical supported jet and a horizontal hydraulic jump. The inflows were partially developed boundary layers, characterized by the presence of a velocity potential core next to the entrapment point. In both cases, the distributions of air concentration exhibit a Gaussian distribution profile with an exponential longitudinal decay of the maximum air content. Interestingly, the location of the maximum air content and the half-value band width are identical for both flow situations, i.e. independent of buoyancy effects.