A condition for an air entrainment by breaking the surface waves at the free surface

An experimental study has been carried out to measure the critical conditions for the inception of an air entrainment by breaking the surface wave at the free surface in the water test facility. The experimental parameters are the vessel diameter, the nozzle diameter, the mean water-level and the water flow rate. More than 400 experimental data which show whether the air is entrained or not at a given experimental condition are obtained, and an experimental correlation that describes the air entrainment condition is developed. The correlation is described by the ratio between the diameter and height of the vessel, the ratio between the diameter of the nozzle and the height of the vessel, the modified Froude number and a modified Weber number. In this experiment two cases of air entrainment are observed. One case is that the air entrainment occurred due to the destruction of the surface wave from the center, and the other case is due to the crash of the water wave to the vessel wall. Theses two cases occur irregularly and the entrained air bubble distributes uniformly in the water.