Buoyancy driven dissolution of inclined blocks: Erosion rate and pattern formation

TL;DR

This study investigates how inclined blocks made of salt, caramel, or plaster dissolve in water, leading to buoyant flows, pattern formation, and erosion, with implications for natural and industrial processes.

Contribution

It introduces experimental observations and scaling laws for dissolution patterns and flow instabilities on inclined dissolving blocks, linking boundary layer dynamics to pattern formation.

Findings

Flow organizes into parallel plume stripes with millimeter-scale wavelength.

Longitudinal grooves form on the block, evolving into 3D cup-like patterns.

The receding velocity of the interface follows derived scaling laws.

Abstract

The dissolution of a body into quiescent water leads to density stratifications at the interfaces that drive buoyant flows. Where the stratification is unstable, the flow destabilizes into convective solute plumes. By analogy with the Rayleigh-B\'enard instability where concentration replaces temperature, this phenomenon is known as the solutal Rayleigh-B\'enard instability. Here we report experiments of the dissolution of inclined rectangular blocks made of salt, caramel or plaster in aqueous solutions of various concentrations. The solute flows along the block while forming plumes before they detach and sink. This flow along the block organizes the emission of plumes within longitudinal parallel stripes with a well-defined millimeter scale wavelength. The instability of the flow reflects on the concentration field in the boundary layer, which engraves longitudinal grooves onto the block. These grooves interact with the flow and turn into a paving of 3 dimensional cup like patterns that grow in size and propagate upstream. These bedforms are reminiscent of the scallop bedforms observed on the walls of cave or icebergs. Whereas the block interface is highly dynamical and evolves through time, it remains flat on the global scale and recedes at a stationary rate. We derive scaling laws for the receding velocity and the pattern genesis at the inclined interface that is based on a concentration boundary layer of constant thickness, which is controlled by the flow instability, but where the patterns nor the flow along the block do not play any role. We apply these results to the formation of sublimation patterns.