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Zhang, Jiahua (Ed.)
Abstract Microplastics are globally ubiquitous in marine environments, and their concentration is expected to continue rising at significant rates as a result of human activity. They present a major ecological problem with well-documented environmental harm. Sea spray from bubble bursting can transport salt and biological material from the ocean into the atmosphere, and there is a need to quantify the amount of microplastic that can be emitted from the ocean by this mechanism. We present a mechanistic study of bursting bubbles transporting microplastics. We demonstrate and quantify that jet drops are efficient at emitting microplastics up to 280μm in diameter and are thus expected to dominate the emitted mass of microplastic. The results are integrated to provide a global microplastic emission model which depends on bubble scavenging and bursting physics; local wind and sea state; and oceanic microplastic concentration. We test multiple possible microplastic concentration maps to find annual emissions ranging from 0.02 to 7.4—with a best guess of 0.1—mega metric tons per year and demonstrate that while we significantly reduce the uncertainty associated with the bursting physics, the limited knowledge and measurements on the mass concentration and size distribution of microplastic at the ocean surface leaves large uncertainties on the amount of microplastic ejected.
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The statistics of breaking wave fields are characterised within a novel multi-layer framework, which generalises the single-layer Saint-Venant system into a multi-layer and non-hydrostatic formulation of the Navier–Stokes equations. We simulate an ensemble of phase-resolved surface wave fields in physical space, where strong nonlinearities, including directional wave breaking and the subsequent highly rotational flow motion, are modelled, without surface overturning. We extract the kinematics of wave breaking by identifying breaking fronts and their speed, for freely evolving wave fields initialised with typical wind wave spectra. The $\varLambda (c)$ distribution, defined as the length of breaking fronts (per unit area) moving with speed $c$ to $c+{\rm d}c$ following Phillips ( J. Fluid Mech. , vol. 156, 1985, pp. 505–531), is reported for a broad range of conditions. We recover the $\varLambda (c) \propto c^{-6}$ scaling without wind forcing for sufficiently steep wave fields. A scaling of $\varLambda (c)$ based solely on the root-mean-square slope and peak wave phase speed is shown to describe the modelled breaking distributions well. The modelled breaking distributions are in good agreement with field measurements and the proposed scaling can be applied successfully to the observational data sets. The present work paves the way for simulations of the turbulent upper ocean directly coupled to a realistic breaking wave dynamics, including Langmuir turbulence, and other sub-mesoscale processes.more » « less
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We investigate drop break-up morphology, occurrence, time and size distribution, through large ensembles of high-fidelity direct-numerical simulations of drops in homogeneous isotropic turbulence, spanning a wide range of parameters in terms of the Weber number We, viscosity ratio between the drop and the carrier flow μr = μd/μl, where d is the drop diameter, and Reynolds (Re) number. For μr ≤ 20, we find a nearly constant critical We, while it increases with μr (and Re) when μr > 20, and the transition can be described in terms of a drop Reynolds number. The break-up time is delayed when μr increases and is a function of distance to criticality. The first break-up child-size distributions for μr ≤ 20 transition from M to U shape when the distance to criticality is increased. At high μr, the shape of the distribution is modified. The first break-up child-size distribution gives only limited information on the fragmentation dynamics, as the subsequent break-up sequence is controlled by the drop geometry and viscosity. At high We, a d−3/2 size distribution is observed for μr ≤ 20, which can be explained by capillary-driven processes, while for μr > 20, almost all drops formed by the fragmentation process are at the smallest scale, controlled by the diameter of the very extended filament, which exhibits a snake-like shape prior to break-up.more » « less
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We investigate wind wave growth by direct numerical simulations solving for the two-phase Navier–Stokes equations. We consider the ratio of the wave speed $c$ to the wind friction velocity $u_*$ from $c/u_*= 2$ to 8, i.e. in the slow to intermediate wave regime; and initial wave steepness $ak$ from 0.1 to 0.3; the two being varied independently. The turbulent wind and the travelling, nearly monochromatic waves are fully coupled without any subgrid-scale models. The wall friction Reynolds number is 720. The novel fully coupled approach captures the simultaneous evolution of the wave amplitude and shape, together with the underwater boundary layer (drift current), up to wave breaking. The wave energy growth computed from the time-dependent surface elevation is in quantitative agreement with that computed from the surface pressure distribution, which confirms the leading role of the pressure forcing for finite amplitude gravity waves. The phase shift and the amplitude of the principal mode of surface pressure distribution are systematically reported, to provide direct evidence for possible wind wave growth theories. Intermittent and localised airflow separation is observed for steep waves with small wave age, but its effect on setting the phase-averaged pressure distribution is not drastically different from that of non-separated sheltering. We find that the wave form drag force is not a strong function of wave age but closely related to wave steepness. In addition, the history of wind wave coupling can affect the wave form drag, due to the wave crest shape and other complex coupling effects. The normalised wave growth rate we obtain agrees with previous studies. We make an effort to clarify various commonly adopted underlying assumptions, and to reconcile the scattering of the data between different previous theoretical, numerical and experimental results, as we revisit this longstanding problem with new numerical evidence.more » « less
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We perform direct numerical simulations of a gas bubble dissolving in a surrounding liquid. The bubble volume is reduced due to dissolution of the gas, with the numerical implementation of an immersed boundary method, coupling the gas diffusion and the Navier–Stokes equations. The methods are validated against planar and spherical geometries’ analytical moving boundary problems, including the classic Epstein–Plesset problem. Considering a bubble rising in a quiescent liquid, we show that the mass transfer coefficient $k_L$ can be described by the classic Levich formula $k_L = (2/\sqrt {{\rm \pi} })\sqrt {\mathscr {D}_l\,U(t)/d(t)}$ , with $d(t)$ and $U(t)$ the time-varying bubble size and rise velocity, and $\mathscr {D}_l$ the gas diffusivity in the liquid. Next, we investigate the dissolution and gas transfer of a bubble in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence flow, extending Farsoiya et al. ( J. Fluid Mech. , vol. 920, 2021, A34). We show that with a bubble size initially within the turbulent inertial subrange, the mass transfer coefficient in turbulence $k_L$ is controlled by the smallest scales of the flow, the Kolmogorov $\eta$ and Batchelor $\eta _B$ microscales, and is independent of the bubble size. This leads to the non-dimensional transfer rate ${Sh}=k_L L^\star /\mathscr {D}_l$ scaling as ${Sh}/{Sc}^{1/2} \propto {Re}^{3/4}$ , where ${Re}$ is the macroscale Reynolds number ${Re} = u_{rms}L^\star /\nu _l$ , with $u_{rms}$ the velocity fluctuations, $L^*$ the integral length scale, $\nu _l$ the liquid viscosity, and ${Sc}=\nu _l/\mathscr {D}_l$ the Schmidt number. This scaling can be expressed in terms of the turbulence dissipation rate $\epsilon$ as ${k_L}\propto {Sc}^{-1/2} (\epsilon \nu _l)^{1/4}$ , in agreement with the model proposed by Lamont & Scott ( AIChE J. , vol. 16, issue 4, 1970, pp. 513–519) and corresponding to the high $Re$ regime from Theofanous et al. ( Intl J. Heat Mass Transfer , vol. 19, issue 6, 1976, pp. 613–624).more » « less
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We present experiments on large air cavities spanning a wide range of sizes relative to the Hinze scale $d_{H}$ , the scale at which turbulent stresses are balanced by surface tension, disintegrating in turbulence. For cavities with initial sizes $d_0$ much larger than $d_{H}$ (probing up to $d_0/d_{H} = 8.3$ ), the size distribution of bubbles smaller than $d_{H}$ follows $N(d) \propto d^{-3/2}$ , with $d$ the bubble diameter. The capillary instability of ligaments involved in the deformation of the large bubbles is shown visually to be responsible for the creation of the small bubbles. Turning to dynamical, three-dimensional measurements of individual break-up events, we describe the break-up child size distribution and the number of child bubbles formed as a function of $d_0/d_{H}$ . Then, to model the evolution of a population of bubbles produced by turbulent bubble break-up, we propose a population balance framework in which break-up involves two physical processes: an inertial deformation to the parent bubble that sets the size of large child bubbles, and a capillary instability that sets the size of small child bubbles. A Monte Carlo approach is used to construct the child size distribution, with simulated stochastic break-ups constrained by our experimental measurements and the understanding of the role of capillarity in small bubble production. This approach reproduces the experimental time evolution of the bubble size distribution during the disintegration of large air cavities in turbulence.more » « less
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Abstract Ocean spray aerosol formed by bubble bursting are at the core of a broad range of atmospheric processes: they are efficient cloud condensation nuclei and carry a variety of chemical, biological, and biomass material from the surface of the ocean to the atmosphere. The origin and composition of these aerosols is sensibly controlled by the detailed fluid mechanics of bubble bursting. This perspective summarizes our present-day knowledge on how bursting bubbles at the surface of a liquid pool contribute to its fragmentation, namely to the formation of droplets stripped from the pool, and associated mechanisms. In particular, we describe bounds and yields for each distinct mechanism, and the way they are sensitive to the bubble production and environmental conditions. We also underline the consequences of each mechanism on some of the many air-sea interactions phenomena identified to date. Attention is specifically payed at delimiting the known from the unknown and the certitudes from the speculations.