Singular air entrapment at vertical and horizontal supported jets: plunging jets versus hydraulic jumps

In plunging jets and at hydraulic jumps, large amounts of air bubbles are entrained at the impingement of the liquid jet into the receiving body. Air is entrapped and advected into a turbulent shear layer with strong interactions between the air bubble advection process and momentum shear flow. In this new physical study, air–water flow measurements were systematically repeated with identical inflow length, inflow depth and inflow velocity in a vertical supported jet (PJ) and a horizontal hydraulic jump (HJ). Detailed measurements were conducted with the same instrumentation. Both similarities and differences were observed between the two multiphase gas–liquid shear flows. Visual observations showed a key difference in the outer region, with a buoyancy-driven flow in the plunging jet with negligible void fraction, versus a strong recirculation motion with uncontrolled interfacial aeration in the hydraulic jump. Differences were also observed at the impingement perimeter, in terms of fluctuation frequencies and amplitudes, for identical inflow conditions. Both flow conditions yielded intense local singular air entrainment and close results were observed in terms of void fraction, bubble count rate, bubble chord sizes and interfacial area in the shear layer, in both the plunging jet and hydraulic jump. The transfer of momentum between impinging jet and receiving water, as well as the effect of buoyancy, were however affected by the flow geometry.