Abstract: | Turbulent mixing across heat-stratified density interfaces was studied in the laboratory using oscillating-grid generated turbulence. The aim was to study the transition between the entrainment regimes dominated by interfacial wave-breaking and molecular diffusion, and to study the characteristics of the latter. It was observed that, above a critical Richardson number Ric, which depends on the Peclet number Pe, the mixing due to wave breaking disappears and that Ric Pe−n, where the mean value of the exponent n is approximately
. Above Ric, the entrainment is molecular-diffusion dominated and takes place through a sequence of events: the buoyancy gradient of the initially sharp density interface is weakened by molecular diffusion until the mixed-layer eddies can engulf a portion of the interfacial layer wherefore the interface sharpens again. Thus, the entrainment events are recurrent with a rate-controlling diffusion stage between them. An entrainment law of the form E Ri−2Pe−2, where E is the entrainment coefficient and Ri is the Richardson number, is suggested for the diffusion-dominated entrainment regime. |