Flow Calculations of Forced Buoyant Plume using Infrared Gas-Visualization

The development of a forced turbulent axisymmetric buoyant plume inside still air environment is studied experimentally. Heated Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) is chosen as the tracer gas and is released into a gas chamber under controlled conditions. A FLIR VUE Pro thermal camera is used to record the development of forced plume. Scalar temperature field inside the plume is estimated using the intensity of the image pixels recorded by the thermal camera. Both instantaneous and time-averaged fields of temperature are obtained from the recordings. Subsequent frames from the recordings are used to estimate the velocity field inside the plume and is compared against the analytical solutions for forced plumes. Preliminary analysis of mixing inside the plume is addressed by tracking the individual image pixels and their intensity changes in time.