Turbulent transfer and mixing of submerged heated water jet

An attempt has been made to analyze the turbulent diffusion, transfer, and mixing of a warm submerged jet discharged horizontally into a body of water of different temperature in a river or lake. When a jet of heated effluent is discharged into a receiving body of water at some depth below its surface, it rises as a plume to the surface and then spreads laterally and longitudinally at the free surface. The rising of the plume is a combination of both the initial momentum flux and the net buoyant force due to the difference in density between the heated effluent and the surrounding ambient flow water. On the basis of conservation laws for heat, mass, and momentum transfer, numerical solutions have been developed and compared with existing experimental data. The practical objective of this analysis is to find the parameters of turbulent mixing, entrainment, and dilution and thereby to establish theoretical and practical engineering criteria for preventing thermo‐pollution in lakes and rivers from power plant thermal discharges. The results of these numerical model techniques (suitable for high‐speed digital computation) have already been successfully employed in predicting patterns of actual hydrodynamics and thermal behavior of heated jet discharges from power plants along the Hudson Estuary and River in New York.