Numerical study of a round buoyant jet under the effect of JONSWAP random waves

This paper presents a numerical study on the hydrodynamic behaviours of a round buoyant jet under the effect of JONSWAP random waves. A three-dimensional large eddy simulation (LES) model is developed to simulate the buoyant jet in a stagnant ambient and JONSWAP random waves. By comparison of velocity and concentration fields, it is found that the buoyant jet exhibits faster decay of centerline velocity, wider lateral spreading and larger initial dilution under the wave effect, indicating that wave dynamics improves the jet entrainment and mixing in the near field, and subsequently mitigate the jet impacts in the far field. The effect of buoyancy force on the jet behaviours in the random waves is also numerically investigated. The results show that the wave effect on the jet entrainment and mixing is considerably weakened under the existence of buoyancy force, resulting in a slower decay rate of centerline velocity and a narrower jet width for the jet with initial buoyancy.