Signature of coalescence during scalar mixing in heterogeneous flow fields

Abstract

We analyze the dynamics of solute mixing in a vortex flow. The transport of a passive tracer is considered in a Rankine vortex. The action of a shear flow, in general, is to achieve stretching of fluid elements. A vortex flow exhibits stretching and folding of fluid elements in a way which brings adjacent fluid elements closer every turn. A strong stretching along the direction of rotation is accompanied by a concomitant thinning in the radial direction leading to a strong diffusive flux which may cause material from neighbouring regions of the mixing interface to aggregate. Through a Lagrangian concentration evolution technique, the diffusive strip method, we obtain the concentration field and pinpoint the signature of coalescence of two neighbouring concentration regions by analyzing the concentration distribution profiles. We link coalescence with reactivity for mixing-limited reactive flows. The analysis is useful to understand scalar dispersion in vortical flow structures.