Experimental Study of Flow around a Circular Cylinder inside a Bubble Plume

Abstract

This study experimentally explores the flow around a cylinder with circular cross-section placed inside a bubble plume. Small gas bubbles with diameter smaller than 0.06 mm are released from electrodes on the bottom of a water tank by electrolysis of water. The bubbles induce water flow around them as they rise because of buoyancy. Inside the generated bubble plume, a cylinder with diameter D of 30 mm is placed at 6.5D above the electrodes. The bubbles and water flow around the cylinder are visualized, and the bubble velocity distribution is measured. The experiments elucidate the bubble behavior around the cylinder, the separated shear layers originating at the cylinder surface, their roll-up, the bubble entrainment in the resultant large-scale eddies behind the cylinder, and the vortex shedding from the cylinder.