Structure of River Turbulence behind Warm‐Water Discharge

Abstract

The paper presents special measurements of the turbulence characteristics in the river reach just behind the discharge of warm water from a thermalelectric power plant. The measurements of the values of instantaneous longitudinal velocities were taken with special micropropeller meters in 54 different verticals (simultaneously in six points at a vertical). The main characteristics of turbulence and basic hydraulic and morphometric quantities are computed and the analysis of different physical phenomena in the river reach is presented. The analysis concerns the spatial distributions of velociiy and water‐temperature values, kinetic energy of turbulence, turbulence intensity, and the dissipation rate of energy. The quantitative estimations of the scales of turbulence were carried out on the basis of analysis of frequency spectra, autocorrelation, and structural functions. Various empirical formulas were derived and checked.