- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review Fluids

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Effects of atmospheric stratification and jet position on the properties of early aircraft contrails

Pierre Saulgeot* and Vincent Brion†

Nicolas Bonne‡

Emmanuel Dormy§

Laurent Jacquin

  • DAAA, ONERA, Université Paris-Saclay, F-92190 Meudon, France

  • DMPE, ONERA, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91123 Palaiseau, France

  • Département de Mathématiques et Applications, UMR-8553, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, 75005 Paris, France

  • DSG, ONERA, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91123 Palaiseau, France

  • *pierre.saulgeot@onera.fr
  • †vincent.brion@onera.fr
  • ‡nicolas.bonne@onera.fr
  • §emmanuel.dormy@ens.fr; https://www.math.ens.fr/~dormy.
  • laurent.jacquin@onera.fr
PDF

Phys. Rev. Fluids 8, 114702 – Published 30 November, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.8.114702

Abstract

The net impact of aircraft contrails on global climate change is a matter of controversy today. Among the many parameters potentially influencing this issue, the role played by the aircraft wake has received only little attention so far. Yet the interaction between the engine exhaust jets causing these contrails and the aircraft wake can lead to modifications in the altitude of the contrails on the order of hundreds of meters. This change in altitude heavily influences the net impact of contrails to global climate change, since it affects the ambient temperature and thereby the ice content and the radiative properties of these contrails. The wake entrainment supporting these effects basically depends on the relative positioning of the jet with respect to the tip vortices and on the buoyant forces associated with atmospheric stratification. Here we focus on these two parameters by running a large number of two-dimensional simulations of the flow from the aftermath of the jet turbulent diffusion, vortex roll-up, and initial ice formation up to the vortex destabilization stage, for a range of values of the vortex based normalization of the Brunt-Väisälä frequency and the jet to wing span ratio. The very near wake dynamics are not simulated and instead replaced by an analytical description for the vortex, the jet, and the ice plume. Ice water content is determined from the offset to ice saturation, given prescribed ambient conditions. The jet lateral spacing is considered in the range from fuselage to wing tip. The potential radiative impact of the early wake is calculated using the total extinction induced by the ice plume. The results are indicative of the impact of older contrail cirrus clouds, the largest proportion in the whole contrail radiative impact. The parametric mapping (stratification, jet spacing) highlights the important role played by the jet position on the opacity of early contrails, for regular stratification levels. In particular, a jet located closer to the wing tip results in contrails located at lower altitudes and reduced optical thickness, suggesting that jet positioning could be an interesting mean of contrail mitigation.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (42)

  1. D. S. Lee, D. W. Fahey, A. Skowron, M. R. Allen, U. Burkhardt, Q. Chen, S. J. Doherty, S. Freeman, P. M. Forster, and J. Fuglestvedt, The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018, Atmos. Environ. 244, 117834 (2021).
  2. H. Appleman, The formation of exhaust condensation trails by jet aircraft, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 34, 14 (1953).
  3. U. Schumann, On conditions for contrail formation from aircraft exhausts, Meteorol. Z. 5, 4 (1996).
  4. L. Jacquin and F. Garnier, On the dynamics of engine jets behind a transport aircraft (ONERA-Publications-TP, Meudon, 1996).
  5. T. Gerz, T. Dürbeck, and P. Konopka, Transport and effective diffusion of aircraft emissions, J. Geophys. Res.: Atmos. 103, 25905 (1998).
  6. R. Paoli and K. Shariff, Contrail modeling and simulation, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 48, 393 (2016).
  7. P. G. Saffman, Vortex Dynamics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993).
  8. S. Unterstrasser, Properties of young contrails–a parametrisation based on large-eddy simulations, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 16, 2059 (2016).
  9. F. Garnier, L. Jacquin, and S. Brunet, Numerical/experimental simulation of exhaust jet mixing in wake vortex, in 30th Fluid Dynamics Conference, Norfolk, VA, USA, paper No. AIAA 1999-3418 (AIAA, 1999).
  10. L. Jacquin, P. Molton, P. Loiret, and E. Coustols, An experiment on jet-wake vortex interaction, in 37th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, Miami, Florida, paper No. AIAA 2007-4363 (AIAA, 2007).
  11. R. Paoli, F. Laporte, B. Cuenot, and T. Poinsot, Dynamics and mixing in jet/vortex interactions, Phys. Fluids 15, 1843 (2003).
  12. S. Unterstrasser, K. Gierens, and P. Spichtinger, The evolution of contrail microphysics in the vortex phase, Meteorol. Z. 17, 145 (2008).
  13. S. Unterstrasser, Large-eddy simulation study of contrail microphysics and geometry during the vortex phase and consequences on contrail-to-cirrus transition, J. Geophys. Res.: Atmos. 119, 7537 (2014).
  14. R. Paoli, L. Nybelen, J. Picot, and D. Cariolle, Effects of jet/vortex interaction on contrail formation in supersaturated conditions, Phys. Fluids 25, 053305 (2013).
  15. F. Garnier, S. Brunet, and L. Jacquin, Modelling exhaust plume mixing in the near field of an aircraft, Ann. Geophys. 15, 1468 (1997).
  16. J.-C. Khou, W. Ghedhaïfi, X. Vancassel, and F. Garnier, Spatial simulation of contrail formation in near-field of commercial aircraft, J. Aircr. 52, 1927 (2015).
  17. D. Kolomenskiy and R. Paoli, Numerical simulation of the wake of an airliner, J. Aircr. 55, 1689 (2018).
  18. P. R. Spalart, Airplane trailing vortices, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 30, 107 (1998).
  19. S. C. Crow, Stability theory for a pair of trailing vortices, AIAA J. 8, 2172 (1970).
  20. S. C. Crow and E. R. Bate, Lifespan of trailing vortices in a turbulent atmosphere, J. Aircr. 13, 476 (1976).
  21. D. Lewellen and W. Lewellen, The effects of aircraft wake dynamics on contrail development, J. Atmos. Sci. 58, 390 (2001).
  22. T. Sarpkaya, Trailing vortices in homogeneous and density-stratified media, J. Fluid Mech. 136, 85 (1983).
  23. R. S. Scorer and L. J. Davenport, Contrails and aircraft downwash, J. Fluid Mech. 43, 451 (1970).
  24. A. A. Shirgaonkar and S. K. Lele, Interaction of vortex wakes and buoyant jets: A study of two-dimensional dynamics, Phys. Fluids 19, 086601 (2007).
  25. P. R. Spalart, On the motion of laminar wing wakes in a stratified fluid, J. Fluid Mech. 327, 139 (1996).
  26. S. Unterstrasser, R. Paoli, I. Sölch, C. Kühnlein, and T. Gerz, Dimension of aircraft exhaust plumes at cruise conditions: Effect of wake vortices, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 14, 2713 (2014).
  27. S. Unterstrasser and N. Görsch, Aircraft-type dependency of contrail evolution, J. Geophys. Res.: Atmos. 119, 14,015 (2014).
  28. D. Papamoschou and A. Roshko, The compressible turbulent shear layer: An experimental study, J. Fluid Mech. 197, 453 (1988).
  29. S. Chandrasekhar, Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (Dover, New-York, 1981) first printed by Clarendon Press (1961).
  30. R. J. List, Smithsonian Meteorological Tables, 6th rev. ed., Vol. 114 (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1951).
  31. G. K. Vallis, D. J. Parker, and S. M. Tobias, A simple system for moist convection: The Rainy–Bénard model, J. Fluid Mech. 862, 162 (2019).
  32. W. L. Flower, Measurements of the diffusion coefficient for soot particles in flames, Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 2287 (1983).
  33. C. C. Wey, B. E. Anderson, C. Wey, R. C. Miake-Lye, P. Whitefield, and R. Howard, Overview on the aircraft particle emissions experiment (APEX), J. Propul. Power 23, 898 (2007).
  34. C. Cambon, J.-P. Benoit, L. Shao, and L. Jacquin, Stability analysis and large-eddy simulation of rotating turbulence with organized eddies, J. Fluid Mech. 278, 175 (1994).
  35. S. P. Govindaraju and P. G. Saffman, Flow in a turbulent trailing vortex, Phys. Fluids 14, 2074 (1971).
  36. T. Gerz, F. Holzäpfel, and D. Darracq, Commercial aircraft wake vortices, Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 38, 181 (2002).
  37. U. Schumann, A contrail cirrus prediction model, Geosci. Model Dev. 5, 543 (2012).
  38. E. E. Ebert and J. A. Curry, A parameterization of ice cloud optical properties for climate models, J. Geophys. Res.: Atmos. 97, 3831 (1992).
  39. S. Unterstrasser and K. Gierens, Numerical simulations of contrail-to-cirrus transition—Part 1: An extensive parametric study, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 10, 2017 (2010).
  40. S. E. Widnall, The structure and dynamics of vortex filaments, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 7, 141 (1975).
  41. J. F. Garten, S. Arendt, D. C. Fritts, and J. Werne, Dynamics of counter-rotating vortex pairs in stratified and sheared environments, J. Fluid Mech. 361, 189 (1998).
  42. T. Bräuer, C. Voigt, D. Sauer, S. Kaufmann, V. Hahn, M. Scheibe, H. Schlager, F. Huber, P. Le Clercq, R. H. Moore, and B. E. Anderson, Reduced ice number concentrations in contrails from low-aromatic biofuel blends, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 21, 16817 (2021).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Fluids 8, 114702– Published 30 November, 2023
  • Received 10 March 2023
  • Accepted 12 October 2023
Crossmark - Check for updates button

©2023 American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation