Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Fountains with Negative Buoyancy

Fountains take place when a source fluid is driven by its momentum into a surrounding ambient fluid, and it is counterbalanced by buoyancy. These phenomena are largely encountered in nature and human activities. Despite the numerous studies on the subject, few experimental data are available about the internal structure of turbulent fountains. Here, we present a set of laboratory experiments with the aim to (i) get direct velocity and density measurements of fountains in a controlled environment and (ii) obtain insights into the basic physics of the phenomenon. The present paper also aims to study the flow physics of the phenomenon using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model developed in OpenFOAM.