Simulations of localized States of stationary convection in 3He-4He mixtures

Simulations of convection in 3He-4He mixtures with a negative separation ratio in two-dimensional containers with realistic boundary conditions and moderately large aspect ratio reveal, at supercritical Rayleigh numbers, the existence of "convectons," i.e., localized states of stationary convection, separated by regions of no convection. The origin and properties of these states are described.     

湍流热对流DNS多分辨率并行直接求解方法

依据温度标量场与动量计算的空间和时间计算分辨率不同的特点,采用两套网格,建立多分辨率双网格并行直接求解方法,用以解决极高Ra数湍流热对流DNS模拟巨大计算工作量的难题.在两套网格的数据交换上,根据每个细网格都满足连续方程,设计了速度的守恒平移插值方法.二维极高Ra数湍流热对流的计算结果表明,采用多分辨率双网格并行直接求解方法的DNS计算,可以使计算工作量降低近一个量级.瞬时温度场显示,双网格方法的计算结果可以很好地描述极高Ra数下快速运动的小尺寸漩涡团状羽流,得到的结果与原网格一致,不同方法计算得到的传热Nu数误差不超过1%.     

Heteroclinic behavior in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection

We investigate numerically the appearance of heteroclinic behavior in a three-dimensional, buoyancy-driven fluid layer with stress-free top and bottom boundaries, a square horizontal periodicity with a small aspect ratio, and rotation at low to moderate rates about a vertical axis. The Prandtl number is 6.8. If the rotation is not too slow, the skewed-varicose instability leads from stationary rolls to a stationary mixed-mode solution, which in turn loses stability to a heteroclinic cycle formed by unstable roll states and connections between them. The unstable eigenvectors of these roll states are also of the skewed-varicose or mixed-mode type and in some parameter regions skewed-varicose like shearing oscillations as well as square patterns are involved in the cycle. Always present weak noise leads to irregular horizontal translations of the convection pattern and makes the dynamics chaotic, which is verified by calculating Lyapunov exponents. In the nonrotating case, the primary rolls lose, depending on the aspect ratio, stability to traveling waves or a stationary square pattern. We also study the symmetries of the solutions at the intermittent fixed points in the heteroclinic cycle. Received 10 June 1999     

Numerical simulations of binary fluid convection in large aspect ratio annular containers

The patterns arising in large aspect ratio annular containers heated from below are analyzed for water-ethanol mixtures with negative Soret coupling. The subcritical Hopf bifurcation at the onset of convection leads to a very rich dynamics. Using high resolution numerical tools based on spectral methods to solve the hydrodynamic equations we obtain and review the properties of the different regimes arising in early stages of convection: spatially extended stationary and travelling wave convective roll structures, dispersive chaotic states, and several types of localized convection. The dynamics triggered by the Eckhaus–Benjamin–Feir instability is presented for a mixture with a moderate negative value of the separation ratio.     

New perspectives in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Recent experimental, numerical and theoretical advances in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented. Particular emphasis is given to the physics and structure of the thermal and velocity boundary layers which play a key role for the better understanding of the turbulent transport of heat and momentum in convection at high and very high Rayleigh numbers. We also discuss important extensions of Rayleigh-Bénard convection such as non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq effects and convection with phase changes.     

New perspectives in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Recent experimental, numerical and theoretical advances in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented. Particular emphasis is given to the physics and structure of the thermal and velocity boundary layers which play a key role for the better understanding of the turbulent transport of heat and momentum in convection at high and very high Rayleigh numbers. We also discuss important extensions of Rayleigh-Bénard convection such as non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq effects and convection with phase changes.     

混合流体Rayleigh-Benard行波对流中的缺陷结构

通过流体力学基本方程的数值模拟,研究了含有缺陷的行波对流的动力学特性. 当分离比Ψ＝－06时,随着相对瑞利数r逐渐增加,系统由局部行波对流过渡到含有缺陷的行波对流,然后缺陷消失过渡到无缺陷的行波对流. 对于不同分离比的研究表明,缺陷出现的周期随着分离比减小而迅速增加,随着r增加而增加. 在负的小分离比时的增加速率大于大分离比时的增加速率. 缺陷存在区间Δr随着分离比绝对值减小很快变小, 并且当Ψ＝－011时缺陷消失,没有发现含有缺陷的行波对流. 当r大于Δr的上限时,系统过渡到无缺陷的行波对流.可是,当r小于Δr的下限时,不同的分离比Ψ值,对应不同的行波对流斑图. 这说明分离比明显地影响着各斑图形成及它们之间的转换,斑图之间的转换是很复杂的. 关键词： Rayleigh-Benard对流 缺陷 混合流体 行波     

Thermosolutal convection in a Maxwellian viscoelastic fluid in porous medium

The thermosolutal convection in a layer of Maxwellian viscoelastic fluid heated and soluted from below in porous medium is considered. The effects of uniform magnetic field and uniform rotation on the thermosolutal convection are also considered. For stationary convection, the Maxwellian viscoelastic fluid behaves like a Newtonian fluid. The sufficient conditions for the nonexistence of overstability are obtained. The critical Rayleigh number is found to increase with the increase in magnetic field, rotation and stable solute gradient.     

Heat Convection Between Two Confocal Elliptic Tubes Placed at Different Orientations

In this paper, transient and steady natural convection heat transfer in an elliptical annulus has been investigated. The annulus occupies the space between two horizontal concentric tubes of elliptic cross-section. The resulting velocity and thermal fields are predicted at different annulus orientations assuming isothermal surfaces. The full governing equations of mass, momentum and energy are solved numerically using the Fourier Spectral method. The heat convection process between the two tubes depends on Rayleigh number, Prandtl number, angle of inclination of tube axes and the geometry and dimensions of both tubes. The Prandtl number and inner tube axis ratio are fixed at 0.7 and 0.5, respectively. The problem is solved for the two Rayleigh numbers of $10^4$ and $10^5$ considering a ratio between the two major axes up to 3 while the angle of orientation of the minor axes varies from $0^\circ$ to $90^\circ$. The results for local and average Nusselt numbers are obtained and discussed together with the details of both flow and thermal fields. For isothermal heating conditions, the study has shown an optimum value for major axes ratio that minimizes the rate of heat transfer between the two tubes. Another important aspect of this paper is to prove the successful use of the Fourier Spectral Method in solving confined flow and heat convection problems.     

Critical stability of almost adiabatic convection in a rapidly rotating thick spherical shell

In this work, the convection equations in the almost adiabatic approximation is studied for which the choice of physical parameters is primarily based on possible applications to the hydrodynamics of the deep interiors of the Earth and planets and moons of the terrestrial group. The initial system of partial differential equations (PDEs) was simplified to a single second-order ordinary differential equation for the pressure or vertical velocity component to investigate the linear stability of convection. The critical frequencies, modified Rayleigh numbers, and distributions of convection are obtained at various possible Prandtl numbers and in different thick fluid shells. An analytical WKB-type solution was obtained for the case when the inner radius of the shell is much smaller than the outer radius and convective sources are concentrated along the inner boundary.     

Analysis of coherent structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection

Using direct numerical simulation, we investigate characteristics of coherent structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a soft turbulence regime. The role of thermal plumes, essential structures in Rayleigh–Bénard convection, is studied by splitting flow regimes into thermal plume and background by investigating joint probability density function (PDF) of invariants of velocity gradient tensor. The contribution to thermal dissipation rate by these two regions is analysed separately. Through the joint PDF of invariants, we also examine the thermal effect on velocity structures.     

Extraction of plumes in turbulent thermal convection

We present a scheme to extract the velocity of buoyant structures in turbulent thermal convection from simultaneous local velocity and temperature measurements. Applying this scheme to measurements taken at positions within the convection cell where the buoyant structures are dominated by plumes, we obtain the temperature dependence of the plume velocity and understand our results using the equations of motion. We further obtain the scaling behavior of the average local heat flux in the vertical direction at the cell center with the Rayleigh number and find that the scaling exponent is different from that measured for the Nusselt number. This difference leads to the conclusion that heat cannot be mainly transported through the central region of the convection cell.     

Wave number selection in Rayleigh-Bénard convection: A numerical study

A phenomenological amplitude equation introduced earlier to calculate steady states of convection in a finite container, is studied numerically as a function of space and time. The effect of sidewalls on wave number selection is demonstrated by observing the response of the system to the sudden imposition of boundary conditions. The wave vectors of stable steady states are studied as a function of Rayleigh number near threshold, and it is shown that more than one state can be stable for fixed Rayleigh number.     

Mean wind in convective turbulence of mercury

The large-scale circulation, often called "wind," in the confined thermal turbulence of mercury is studied experimentally. The instantaneous velocity profile at 128 points is directly measured using ultrasonic velocimetry. The periodic velocity oscillation is observed in the case of the aspect-ratio Gamma = 1,2 but not in Gamma = 0.5. Its peak frequency is scaled by f(c) proportional Ra(gamma(c)), where Ra is the Rayleigh number and gamma(c) = 0.43,0.45 for Gamma = 1,2. f(c) is close to the wind circulation frequency f(p), and has the same order of transit time from the bottom to the top of the convection cell. A single roll circulation is expected in Gamma = 1; however, axisymmetric toroidal rings may exist near the upper and lower plate for Gamma = 0.5, which are stable up to Ra = 7 x 10 (10).     

高Rayleigh数条件下竖圆环夹层内自然对流换热的实验研究

对内壁维持恒热流和外壁向环境冷却的大高宽比竖圆环夹层内自然对流换热进行了实验研究。实验装置高宽比分别为２３５和６６６７，半径比分别为２．０３和３．９２。实验数据整理考虑了热辐射影响以获得对流规律。由于已有工作均未考虑高Ｒａ数区域，首次得到Ｒａ数高达１０￣９的区域内平均Ｎｕ数的换热准则式。在低Ｒａ数区域，亦取得了与前人工作一致的结论。本文结果改进了高Ｒａ数区域换热规律的预测能力。     

Logarithmic corrections to scaling in turbulent thermal convection

We use a simplified model of turbulent convection to compute analytically heat transport in a horizontal layer heated from below, as a function of the Rayleigh and the Prandtl number. At low Reynolds numbers, when most of the dissipation comes from the mean flow, we recover power classical scaling regimes of the Nusselt versus Rayleigh number, with exponent 1/3 or 1/4. At larger Reynolds number, velocity and temperature fluctuations become non-negligible in the dissipation. In these regimes, there is no exact power law dependence the Nusselt versus Rayleigh or Prandtl. Instead, we obtain logarithmic corrections to the classical soft (exponent 1/3) or ultra-hard (exponent 1/2) regimes, in a way consistent with the most accurate experimental measurements available nowadays. This sets a need for the search of new measurable quantities that are less prone to dimensional theories.     

Rayleigh-Benard convection in a vertically oscillated fluid layer

We report on the first quantitative observations of convection in a fluid layer driven by both heating from below and vertical sinusoidal oscillation. Just above onset, convection patterns are modulated either harmonically or subharmonically to the drive frequency. Single-frequency patterns exhibit nearly solid-body rotations with harmonic and subharmonic states always rotating in opposite directions. Flows with both harmonic and subharmonic responses are found near a codimension-two point, yielding novel coexisting patterns with symmetries not found in either single-frequency states. Predictions from linear stability analysis of the onset Rayleigh and wave numbers compare well with experiment, and phase boundaries for coexisting patterns track single-frequency marginal stability curves.     

Chaotic travelling rolls in Rayleigh-Bénard convection

In this paper we investigate two-dimensional (2D) Rayleigh-Bénard convection using direct numerical simulation in Boussinesq fluids with Prandtl number P = 6.8 confined between thermally conducting plates. We show through the simulation that in a small range of reduced Rayleigh number r (770 < r < 890) the 2D rolls move chaotically in a direction normal to the roll axis. The lateral shift of the rolls may lead to a global flow reversal of the convective motion. The chaotic travelling rolls are observed in simulations with free-slip as well as no-slip boundary conditions on the velocity field. We show that the travelling rolls and the flow reversal are due to an interplay between the real and imaginary parts of the critical modes.     

Large-scale patterns in Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Rayleigh-Bénard convection at large Rayleigh number is characterized by the presence of intense, vertically moving plumes. Both laboratory and numerical experiments reveal that the rising and descending plumes aggregate into separate clusters so as to produce large-scale updrafts and downdrafts. The horizontal scales of the aggregates reported so far have been comparable to the horizontal extent of the containers, but it has not been clear whether that represents a limitation imposed by domain size. In this work, we present numerical simulations of convection at sufficiently large aspect ratio to ascertain whether there is an intrinsic saturation scale for the clustering process when that ratio is large enough. From a series of simulations of Rayleigh-Bénard convection with Rayleigh numbers between 10⁵ and 10⁸ and with aspect ratios up to 12π, we conclude that the clustering process has a finite horizontal saturation scale with at most a weak dependence on Rayleigh number in the range studied.     

基于弱可压与不可压光滑粒子动力学方法的封闭方腔自然对流数值模拟及算法对比

为了对比研究弱可压光滑粒子动力学(WCSPH)方法和不可压光滑粒子动 力学(ISPH)方法在模拟封闭方腔自然对流问题时的特性, 采用粒子位移技术有效地解决了高瑞利数条件下, 拉格朗日型SPH方法模拟封闭方腔自然对流时流体域内的粒子聚集和空穴问题, 将拉格朗日型SPH 方法求解封闭方腔自然对流问题的最高瑞利数提高到了10⁶; 进而通过对比瑞利数分别为10⁴, 10⁵, 10⁶的条件下, 采用拉格朗日型WCSPH、 拉格朗日型ISPH、欧拉型ISPH三种SPH方法模拟得到的封闭方腔速度分布云图、 温度分布云图、壁面努赛尔特数分布曲线和平均努塞尔特数, 分析了三种SPH方法在模拟封闭方腔自然对流时的精度、稳定性和计算效率. 结果表明: 在低瑞利数条件下, 以上三种SPH方法都可以较好地模拟此问题, 在高瑞利数条件下, 欧拉型ISPH方法的模拟结果最为精确; 拉格朗日型WCSPH方法模拟所得结果比拉格朗日型ISPH方法模拟所得结果稍好些. 关键词： 光滑粒子动力学 不可压光滑粒子动力学 粒子位移技术 自然对流