Quantitative Measurement of Mass Transport Using Vortex Rings

Abstract

Basic experiments were performed to investigate the use of vortex rings as a means to transport a small amount of fluid. The compact and unchanging nature of vortex rings is suitable to obtain high-density distribution of the transported fluid within a specific confined region. A certain amount of fluid in a cylinder was discharged into a quiescent fluid in the water tank by a piston through an orifice 20.0 mm in diameter. The fluid distributions transported by a set of 10 vortex rings, by 20 vortex rings, and by a single, short puff-like jet were quantitatively analyzed and compared. For all ejection conditions, the total volume of discharged fluid and the average ejection velocity through the orifice are the same (78.5×10 4 mm 3 and 125 mm/s, respectively). The particle count method was used to quantitatively measure the distribution of the transported fluid. As a result, the vortex rings were found to be superior to the single short discharge for transporting a fluid to obtain a high density distribution in a narrow region.

Mass transport using the series of vortex rings with swirl

“…As a result, it became clear that the specific gravity of the material to be transported must be less than that of the fluid composing the vortex ring. Naitoh et al, (2011) investigated the use of the series of vortex rings to transport a small amount of fluid by discharging a relatively moderate flow so as to obtain a high density distribution of the fluid in a specific narrow region. They quantitatively analyzed the distributions of transported fluid in two cases when vortex rings were formed by 10 to 20 ejections of fluid compared to a single, short puff-like ejection with the total volume of ejected fluid being constant in both cases.…”