Author(s): Arturo S. Leon; Ibrahem S. Elayeb; Yun Tang

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Keywords: Combined sewer overflow; combined sewer system; experiment; geyser; stormwater; transient; violent eruption

Abstract: This paper reports a laboratory study on violent geysers in a vertical pipe. Each geyser produced consists of a few consecutive violent eruptions within a time frame of a few seconds with heights that may exceed 30 m. Herein, the term “violent” is used to distinguish the present work from previous studies, which reported geyser heights that were relatively small compared to the present study. Previous work has speculated that the extreme behavior of geysers is driven by the buoyant rise of the air pocket in the vertical pipe. The present study shows that once the air pocket breaks through the free surface and produces a water spill, the horizontal pipe flow dynamics, in particular the rapidly changing pressure gradient following the first weak eruption, is driving the entire geyser mechanism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221686.2018.1494052

Year: 2019