Spin-down in a rapidly rotating cylinder container with mixed rigid and stress-free boundary conditions

DOI10.1017/JFM.2017.134zbMATH Open1383.76534arXiv1611.06511OpenAlexW2554970311WikidataQ57946379 ScholiaQ57946379MaRDI QIDQ5364653FDOQ5364653

Ludivine Oruba, Andrew M. Soward, E. Dormy

Publication date: 28 September 2017

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

Abstract: A comprehensive study of the classical linear spin-down of a constant density viscous fluid (kinematic viscosity

u) rotating rapidly (angular velocity Omega) inside an axisymmetric cylindrical container (radius L, height H) with rigid boundaries, that follows the instantaneous small change in the boundary angular velocity at small Ekman number $E=u/H^{2}Omegall1$, was provided by Greenspan & Howard (1963). $E^{1/2}$-Ekman layers form quickly triggering inertial waves together with the dominant spin-down of the quasi-geostrophic (QG) interior flow on the $O(E^{-1/2}Omeg{a}^{-1})$ time-scale. On the longer lateral viscous diffusion time-scale $O(L^2/u)$, the QG-flow responds to the $E^{1/3}$-side-wall shear-layers. In our variant the side-wall and top boundaries are stress-free; a setup motivated by the study of isolated atmospheric structures, such as tropical cyclones, or tornadoes. Relative to the unbounded plane layer case, spin-down is reduced (enhanced) by the presence of a slippery (rigid) side-wall. This is evinced by the QG-angular velocity, omega*, evolution on the O(L^2/

u) time-scale: Spatially, omega* increases (decreases) outwards from the axis for a slippery (rigid) side-wall; temporally, the long-time ($gg{L}^2/u)$ behaviour is dominated by an eigensolution with a decay rate slightly slower (faster) than that for an unbounded layer. In our slippery side-wall case, the $E^{1/2}imes{E}^{1/2}$ corner region that forms at the side-wall intersection with the rigid base is responsible for a $lnE$ singularity within the $E^{1/3}$-layer causing our asymptotics to apply only at values of E far smaller than can be reached by our Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of the entire spin-down process. Instead, we solve the $E^{1/3}$-boundary-layer equations for given E numerically. Our hybrid asymptotic-numerical approach yields results in excellent agreement with our DNS.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.06511

zbMATH Keywords

boundary layersrotating flowsgeophysical and geological flows

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory of rotating fluids (76U05) Direct numerical and large eddy simulation of turbulence (76F65) Meteorology and atmospheric physics (86A10) Viscous vortex flows (76D17)

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Cited In (6)

• Stress-driven spin-down of a viscous fluid within a spherical shell
• Inertial wave activity during spin-down in a rapidly rotating penny shaped cylinder
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• The two-dimensional character of spin-up in a rectangular container
• Water Waves in Isotropic and Anisotropic Media: A comparison
• On the inertial wave activity during spin-down in a rapidly rotating penny shaped cylinder: a reduced model

Uses Software

• Digital Library of Mathematical Functions

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