Flow organisation in laterally unconfined Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence

DOI10.1017/JFM.2020.797zbMATH Open1461.76240arXiv2006.01505OpenAlexW3104069350MaRDI QIDQ5144533FDOQ5144533

Authors: Alexander Blass, R. Verzicco, Richard J. A. M. Stevens, D. Krug, Detlef Lohse 

Publication date: 18 January 2021

Published in: Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We investigate the large-scale circulation (LSC) of turbulent Rayleigh-B'enard convection in a large box of aspect ratio $Gamma=32$ for Rayleigh numbers up to $Ra=10^9$ and at a fixed Prandtl number $Pr=1$. A conditional averaging technique allows us to extract statistics of the LSC even though the number and the orientation of the structures vary throughout the domain. We find that various properties of the LSC obtained here, such as the wall-shear stress distribution, the boundary layer thicknesses and the wind Reynolds number, do not differ significantly from results in confined domains ($Gammaapprox1$). This is remarkable given that the size of the structures (as measured by the width of a single convection roll) more than doubles at the highest $Ra$ as the confinement is removed. An extrapolation towards the critical shear Reynolds number of $R{e}_s^{extrmcrit}approx420$, at which the boundary layer (BL) typically becomes turbulent, predicts that the transition to the ultimate regime is expected at $R{a}_{extrmcrit}approxmathcalO(10^{15})$ in unconfined geometries. This result is in line with the G"ottingen experimental observations. Furthermore, we confirm that the local heat transport close to the wall is highest in the plume impacting region, where the thermal BL is thinnest, and lowest in the plume emitting region, where the thermal BL is thickest. This trend, however, weakens with increasing $Ra$.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01505

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zbMATH Keywords

atmospheric flowsturbulent convectionRayleigh-Bénard convection

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Free convection (76R10) Meteorology and atmospheric physics (86A10) Convective turbulence (76F35)

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Cited In (7)

• Unsteady flow organization of compressible planar base flows
• Morphology evolution of a melting solid layer above its melt heated from below
• Passive scalar transport in Couette flow
• Axially homogeneous Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a cylindrical cell
• Onset of large-scale convection in wall-bounded turbulent shear flows
• The large-scale footprint in small-scale Rayleigh-Bénard turbulence
• The generalized quasilinear approximation of two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Uses Software

• AFiD

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