Boussinesq approximation in the Rayleigh-Benard problem

Instability of mechanical equilibrium and initiation of plane steady-state convective flows in an infinite horizontal fluid layer heated from below (Rayleigh-Benard problem) are investigated. The convection model for an isothermal incompressible fluid is not assumed to have small thermal expansion (contrary to the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation). The influence of a supplementary thermal expansion parameter on the convection process is numerically investigated. The results are compared with the known results for the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation. It is shown that subcritical instability is possible if the thermal expansion parameter increases. The linearization and Lyapunov-Schmidt methods are applied.Rostov-on-Don. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 3–10, September–October, 1995.     

Turbulent thermal convection in wide horizontal fluid layers

Turbulence in thermal convection is investigated for flows in which the production of turbulence energy is due solely to buoyancy, and the statistics of the flow are homogeneous in horizontal planes. New experimental results for high Rayleigh number unsteady turbulent convection in a horizontal layer heated from below and insulated from above are presented and compared to turbulent Rayleigh convection, convection in the planetary boundary layer, and laboratory penetrative convection. Mean temperature fields are correlated in terms of wall layer scales and convection scales. Joint statistics of turbulent temperature and horizontal velocity and vertical velocity through fourth order are presented for the core region of the convection layer.This paper was presented at the Ninth Symposium on Turbulence, University of Missouri-Rolla, October 1–3, 1984     

Parametric Excitation of a Secondary Flow in a Vertical Layer of a Fluid in the Presence of Small Solid Particles

Thermal convection is studied in an inhomogeneous medium consisting of a fluid and a solid admixture under conditions of finite–frequency vibrations. Convection equations are derived within the framework of the generalized Boussinesq approximation, and the problem of flow stability in a vertical layer of a viscous fluid with horizontal oscillations along the layer to infinitely small perturbations is considered. A comparison with experimental data is made.     

Numerical modeling of thermocapillary convection in a fluid layer with local heating of the free surface

Thermocapillary convection in a plane horizontal fluid layer with concentrated heating of the free surface is modeled numerically using the Navier-Stokes equations and the heat transport equation. This makes it possible to examine the structure of the convection throughout the fluid volume, in particular in the region where the motion is weak. The deformation of the free surface is assumed to be negligibly small. In the case of a ponderable fluid this assumption is justified given certain upper and lower constraints on the temperature difference and the thickness of the layer, respectively, [9, 10]. Under conditions of weightlessness a fluid layer of constant thickness in a rectangular channel can be realized at a contact angle of 90° [7].Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 108–113, July–August, 1987.     

Convection in an oscillating force field and microgravity

Convective flows in a plane layer of viscous fluid in the presence of an oscillating external force are investigated numerically [1 – 8]. The layer is assumed to be placed in a gravitational field. The cases in which the external field oscillations are generated by rotation about the horizontal axis or by vibration in the longitudinal direction are considered. The Navier-Stokes equations and the Boussinesq approximation are used for describing the fluid motion. The flows developing in the layer in the presence of a transverse temperature gradient are determined, the stability boundaries of these flows are found, and the supercritical motion regimes are studied. These investigations are carried out using the averaging method (in order to find the stability limits for high rotation velocities and vibration frequencies) and the Galerkin method.Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 99–106, September–October, 1994.     

The onset of penetrative double-diffusive convection

The onset of double-diffusive convection in a horizontal fluid layer is studied. The density is assumed to depend quadratically on the temperature and linearly on the solute concentration. Under the Boussinesq approximation, the linear stability of the conduction state is investigated with respect to the oscillatory and steady convection modes. For steady onset, the critical thermal Rayleigh number is found to be a double-valued function of the solutal Rayleigh number as long as the relative maximum of the density profile exists within the fluid layer. Driving mechanisms of the steady convections are discussed.     

The convective instability of Maxwell fluid-saturated porous layer using a thermal non-equilibrium model

A linear stability analysis is carried out to study viscoelastic fluid convection in a horizontal porous layer heated from below and cooled from above when the solid and fluid phases are not in a local thermal equilibrium. The modified Darcy–Brinkman–Maxwell model is used for the momentum equation and two-field model is used for the energy equation each representing the solid and fluid phases separately. The conditions for the onset of stationary and oscillatory convection are obtained analytically. Linear stability analysis suggests that, there is a competition between the processes of viscoelasticity and thermal diffusion that causes the first convective instability to be oscillatory rather than stationary. Elasticity is found to destabilize the system. Besides, the effects of Darcy number, thermal non-equilibrium and the Darcy–Prandtl number on the stability of the system are analyzed in detail.     

Problem of a solid half-space melted by a hot rotating disk or ring

The sliding friction of solids at high speed and under heavy load may be accompanied by a transition to the plastic or fluid state in the friction contact zone [1]. The stage corresponding to a developed fluid layer is investigated without taking into account the plastic deformation of the rubbing bodies; it is assumed that all the heat released is expended exclusively on melting the solid. Previous attempts to investigate this stage theoretically have been based on the approximation of a fluid layer of constant thickness and the use of the heat balance equation [1, 2]. Here, the velocity and temperature profiles are approximated by relations quadratic in the transverse coordinate with coefficients that depend on the longitudinal coordinate. These are determined from the boundary conditions and the integral relations of boundary layer theory. The relations obtained are used to determine the rate at which a hot rotating ring melts through a block of ice.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 3, pp. 30–34, May–June, 1990.     

Effect of high-frequency vibration on the development of secondary convective conditions

An investigation is made of the development of convective flows of a viscous incompressible liquid, subjected to high-frequency vibration. The nonlinear equations of convection are used in the Boussinesq approximation, averaged in time. The amplitude of the perturbations is assumed to be small, but finite. For a horizontal layer with solid walls the existence of both subcritical and supercritical stable secondary conditions is established. In a linear statement, the problem of stability in the presence of a modulation has been discussed in [1–3]. Articles [4–6] were devoted to investigation of the nonlinear problem. In [4], the method of grids was used to study secondary conditions in a cavity of square cross section. In the case of a horizontal layer with free boundaries [5, 6], the character of the branching is established by the method of a small parameter.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2, pp. 90–96, March–April, 1976.The authors thank I. B. Simonenko for his useful evaluation of the work.     

Vibrational and convective instability of a plane horizontal fluid layer at finite vibration frequencies

The vibrational-convective instability of a plane horizontal fluid layer subject to longitudinal harmonic vibrations of finite frequency and transverse stratification in a static gravity field is studied. The analysis is based on the complete convection equations in the Boussinesq approximation. It is demonstrated that in the limiting case of high-frequency vibrations the results thus obtained coincide with those obtained earlier on the basis of the averaged equations. In the limiting low-frequency case the nature of the instability is quite different being due to the instability of oscillating counterstreams.Perm'. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 44–51, September–October, 1996.     

Stability of convective viscous fluid flow in porous and free vertical layers

The linear stability of convection in a system consisting of a vertical layer of fluid and an adjacent layer of porous medium saturated with that fluid is investigated. The fluid and the porous medium are bounded by isothermal surfaces heated to different temperatures.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 3–9, September–October, 1990.The author wishes to thank G. Z. Gershuni for supervising the work and D. V. Lyubimov for useful discussions.     

Hydrothermal convection in a thin porous ring

Natural convection of the fluid in a thin porous ring on whose boundaries steady temperature distributions are maintained is considered. For this problem on the basis of the two-dimensional equations an integrodifferential equation is obtained in the zeroth approximation in terms of a small parameter, namely the relative thickness of convection. A parametric numerical investigation of the flow and temperature fields is carried out.Makhachkala, Kaspiisk. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 4–8, November–December, 1994.     

Accuracy of the Boussinesq approximation for an incompressible fluid

The corrections of first order to the eigenvalues and critical Rayleigh numbers obtained in the Boussinesq approximation are determined for convection in a fluid with zero compressibility. The ratio of the equilibrium difference of the densities to a mean density of the fluid is taken as the small parameter. The corrections are found by the methods of perturbation theory for self-adjoint operators. It is shown that in the class of problems with symmetry with respect to a horizontal plane the first-order corrections vanish. The restrictions on the system needed if the Boussinesq approximation is to be meaningful in the problem of the occurrence of convective instability are established.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No, 2, pp. 19–26, March–April, 1981.     

Viscous flow in a partially-filled horizontal cylinder rotating at constant speed

The problem under consideration is that of the stationary shape of the free surface of a viscous fluid in a steadily rotating horizontal cylinder. In the majority of investigations of this problem the thickness of the fluid layer coating the inner surface of the cylinder is assumed to be small [1–3]. The case of a near-horizontal free surface, with the bulk of the fluid at the cylinder bottom, was considered in [4], where, after considerable simplification, the governing equations were reduced to ordinary differential equations. In the present study the behavior of the free surface is investigated using a creeping flow approximation. The controlling parameters vary over a wide range. In the numerical computations a boundary element method was used. The numerical results have been confirmed experimentally.Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 3, pp. 25–30, May–June, 1993.     

Investigation of thermocapillary and thermogravitational convection in a fluid with local heating

The results of a numerical solution of the problem of the unsteady convective motion generated in a fluid layer by the formation at the initial instant of a heated zone in the form of a thin cylindrical column, extending from the surface into the interior of the fluid, are presented. The problem is formulated with allowance for both thermocapillary and thermogravitational convection. The influence of the thermocapillary and thermogravitational effects on the fluid motion for various layer thicknesses is subjected to parametric analysis.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 25–29, November–December, 1989.     

Thermal structure of convective vortex lattices

The thermal structure of the convective motions of a rotating plane layer of fluid is experimentally investigated in the regular vortex structure regime. It is found that in such a system the intense vortex motion leads to a temperature distribution such that the mean fluid temperature falls linearly from the bottom of the layer to the surface, the temperature gradient being determined by the rate of rotation and depth of the fluid. By dimensional analysis it is shown that this gradient corresponds to heat transfer in which the Nusselt number isolines are parallel to the convection curve. The horizontal structure of the temperature field is investigated; it corresponds to motion in which the fluid descends within a narrow vortex-sink and rises along the edges of a cylinder which determines the characteristic dimension of the structure in rotating fluid convection.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 160–166, November–December, 1987.The author wishes to thank G. S. Golitsyn for his constant interest in the work.     

Microconvection in a vertical layer

In the case of very weak gravity the classical Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation is not valid for describing thermal gravitational convection. This was pointed out in [1] where a new model was proposed under the assumption that the fluid is isothermal and incompressible. In this model the velocity vector is no longer solenoidal. Below, on the basis of this model we analyze the convective motion in a vertical layer, on the rigid boundaries of which a heat flux that depends on time only is prescribed. It is found that the nonsolenoidal character of the velocity does not lead to considerable restructuring of the steady-state convection. At the same time, the patterns of the unsteady, in particular, periodic convective flow calculated within the framework of the classical and the new models differ significantly.Novosibirsk. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 76–84, September–October, 1994.     

Turbulent convection in a plane horizontal layer

The problem of convection in an incompressible fluid between two horizontal planes maintained at a constant temperature without friction on the boundaries is considered. The medium is assumed to be turbulent. A theoretical model is constructed using mathematical modeling of the coherent structure in the turbulent flow. This turbulent convection-model has one empirical constant in the relations closing the generalized Reynolds equations. The problem formulated is solved analytically by means of the Stuart-Landau method. The main characteristics of the finite-amplitude ordered convection are obtained and their dependence on the empirical constant is studied.Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No.6, pp. 49–56, November–December, 1993.     

Intrapore convection when the average temperature gradient is vertical

The heat conduction of a porous medium saturated with a fluid is usually regarded as being purely molecular [1]. The assumption here is that in the case of heating from below the local temperature gradient within each of the pores, like the averaged gradient in the complete layer, is strictly vertical, and, since the pores are as a rule small, this local gradient is less than the critical. It is therefore assumed that in the absence of large-scale convection the fluid in the pores is in equilibrium. However, for different thermal conductivities of the fluid and the porous skeleton surrounding it a vertical temperature gradient in the fluid and, accordingly, equilibrium of the fluid are possible only if a cavity is a sphere or an ellipsoid with a definite orientation [1]. Since the pores do not have such shapes, the convective motion that arises in each of the pores or in several communicating pores can lead to an increase in the effective thermal conductivity of the fluid and, accordingly, the effective thermal conductivity of the complete medium. The present paper is devoted to study of this effect.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 93–98, January–February, 1984.