Investigation of entrainment and thermal properties of a cryogenic dense-gas cloud using optical measurement techniques

Cryogenic dense-gas clouds have been investigated in a heavy-gas channel under controlled source and ambient conditions. Advantage is taken from new, non-intrusive optical measurement techniques (e.g. image correlation velocimetry, ICV, and background oriented Schlieren, BOS) providing detailed pictures of the temperature and velocity field in relevant regions of the cloud. The ice particles in the cloud, formed by nucleation, represent a natural seeding to be used as tracers, which have the advantage of behaving passively. Two layers can be identified in a cryogenic gas cloud: a lower cold layer, which is visible due to the presence of ice particles, and an invisible upper layer, where the ice particles have melted, mostly due to heat addition by air entrainment into the upper layer. A two-layer model has been applied to a generic element of the cloud, where detailed experimental data regarding velocity and temperature are available. Thermal- and dilution behaviour can be interpreted by means of the model which is presented in detail. A global entrainment parameter is deduced allowing a simple comparison with existing experimental information obtained by other traditional experimental techniques. The numerical values of the present entrainment parameter agree well with the correlations proposed by other authors. Thermal effects, such as heat transfer from the ground, appear to be very important. In addition, the visible height of the cloud can be predicted in relative good agreement with the experimental observations, by means of a thermal balance including the phase transition of the ice particles.