Hydrodynamics Matters: Unravelling the Gas Transfer Law for the Energy
Dissipation Process in a High-energy Stream
Abstract
Accurately quantifying air-water gas transfer is pivotal for
understanding carbon cycles and assessing aquatic hypoxia prevalence. In
the energy dissipation process of high-energy streams, gas transfer is
extremely high, but the estimation becomes challenging due to the
instantaneous variability in flow properties. Experiments in a
laboratory open channel flume for a typical energy dissipation process
(hydraulic jump) have been undertaken. The transfer efficiency E for the
hydraulic jump lay between 0.037 to 0.162. These values are 4 to 7 times
larger than those reported in previous studies with comparable layouts
but different scales, highlighting the substantial impact of scale
effects in bubble dynamics on gas transfer. Localized gas transfer
velocities k600 exhibited a range from 340 to 985 m/day, falling within
the order of 100 for estuaries and lowland rivers and comparable to
rapids in a large whitewater river. Paired experiments were conducted to
explicitly resolve the hydrodynamics of the free surface and bubbles.
Subsequently, a mechanistic model was developed by establishing a
relationship between gas transfer and hydrodynamics. The model
physically clarified the gas transfer contribution from free-surface and
bubble-mediated components and elucidated the reasons for gas transfer
heterogeneity for different flows. The results provide insights into gas
transfer estimation on a large scale.