Shallow Turbulent Flows by Video Imaging Method

Shallow turbulent flows were produced in a tank of small thickness to study the friction effects on large-scale turbulent motion of small depth. The tank was constructed of two parallel walls. The space between the parallel walls (4.4, 1.57, and 0.59 cm) was small compared with the height (107 cm) and the width (212 cm) of the tank, and was varied during the experiments for different friction effects. Turbulent flows were produced by the injection of water in the form of starting jets into the tank filled with water. The large-scale turbulent flow in the small space between the walls of the tank is confined to essentially two-dimensional motion, and the motion is retarded by the force of friction. Dye was injected with the source fluid as the tracer for the highly unsteady and quasitwo-dimensional turbulent motion. From the initiation of the turbulent motion at the source to the final interaction of the jets with the tank bottom, the entire sequence of events was recorded by a pair of video cameras. The depth-averaged concentration of the dye was analyzed using the recorded video images.