Thermal discharge of warm water into cooler stagnant water

This paper is concerned with development of a predictive tool to determine the heat diffusion
profile for heated water discharge into a body of stagnant receiving water. The process makes
use of a thermal imaging camera to measure the discharge plume from a range of sites in
order to observe the actual discharge and then to provide a mathematical model that will
allow British Waterways to satisfy the Environmental Agency regulations. In addition the
sites are replicated in a laboratory environment with a scale model tank that allows the
mixing zones to be measured under variable conditions. In this case the heated water is dyed
to provide a visual plume in addition to the thermal image. The plume and mixing zone are
then predicted using appropriate software such as Matlab, the model being optimised to
reflect the real measured discharges.