UC Berkeley

In this dissertation I set out to determine how shape and size influence the kinematics and mass flux of Taylor-lengthscale-sized particles in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. Through laboratory experiments, I investigated different sized and shaped flat particles to determine what happens with the spinning and tumbling of those particles in turbulent environments. The results of this first set of experiments showed dependence on size, but not shape. The size-dependent results from the flat particles agreed with the findings for fibers (Oehmke et al., 2021) and cuboids (Pujara et al., 2018).

To determine the mass flux of Taylor-lengthscale-sized particles, I developed a new particle to study dissolution in turbulence. This particle was made from a sugar-glass recipe and had the characteristics of being neutrally buoyant and shape-similar while it dissolved (Oehmke and Variano, 2021). Based on results from previous work that characterized motion (Pujara et al., 2018, Bordoloi and Variano 2017, Byron et al., 2015), I created rod- and disc-like particles and compared their surface area, volume, and surface-area-to-volume ratios. In all cases, the disc-shaped particles dissolved faster than the rod-shaped particles signifying that shape plays an important role in dissolution dynamics.