Motion of Turbulent Vortex Rings

Abstract

Produced in one way or another, vortex rings subsequently move away from the vortex-generating apparatus and propagate in a virtually unbounded medium. The motion of a formed vortex ring in an unbounded medium is the main stage of its existence in terms of both duration and distance traveled by the ring until it decays owing to the viscosity of the medium. Determination of the laws of motion and evolution of a formed ring is a fundamental problem of vortex ring dynamics. This problem is rather complicated since viscosity must be taken into account, and until recently it has not had a theoretical solution. Lugovtsov was the first to give the original formulation and solution of the problem of motion of turbulent vortex rings (Lugovtsov et al. 1969; Lugovtsov 1970, 1974, 1976a,b, 1979; Lugovtsov and Lugovtsov 1971). Experimental verification of the theoretical results was obtained mainly by Tarasov (Lugovtsov et al. 1969; Tarasov 1973, 1975b).