The central open question about Rayleigh–Bénard convection – buoyancy-driven flow in a fluid layer heated from below and cooled from above – is how vertical heat flux depends on the imposed temperature gradient in the strongly nonlinear regime where the flows are typically turbulent. The quantitative challenge is to determine how the Nusselt number $Nu$ depends on the Rayleigh number $Ra$ in the $Ra\to \infty$ limit for fluids of fixed finite Prandtl number $Pr$ in fixed spatial domains. Laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and analysis of Rayleigh's mathematical model have yet to rule out either of the proposed ‘classical’ $Nu \sim Ra^{1/3}$ or ‘ultimate’ $Nu \sim Ra^{1/2}$ asymptotic scaling theories. Among the many solutions of the equations of motion at high $Ra$ are steady convection rolls that are dynamically unstable but share features of the turbulent attractor. We have computed these steady solutions for $Ra$ up to $10^{14}$ with $Pr=1$ and various horizontal periods. By choosing the horizontal period of these rolls at each $Ra$ to maximize $Nu$ , we find that steady convection rolls achieve classical asymptotic scaling. Moreover, they transport more heat than turbulent convection in experiments or simulations at comparable parameters. If heat transport in turbulent convection continues to be dominated by heat transport in steady rolls as $Ra\to \infty$ , it cannot achieve the ultimate scaling.
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Single-Mode Solutions for Convection and Double-Diffusive Convection in Porous Media
This work employs single-mode equations to study convection and double-diffusive convection in a porous medium where the Darcy law provides large-scale damping. We first consider thermal convection with salinity as a passive scalar. The single-mode solutions resembling steady convection rolls reproduce the qualitative behavior of root-mean-square and mean temperature profiles of time-dependent states at high Rayleigh numbers from direct numerical simulations (DNS). We also show that the single-mode solutions are consistent with the heat-exchanger model that describes well the mean temperature gradient in the interior. The Nusselt number predicted from the single-mode solutions exhibits a scaling law with Rayleigh number close to that followed by exact 2D steady convection rolls, although large aspect ratio DNS results indicate a faster increase. However, the single-mode solutions at a high wavenumber predict Nusselt numbers close to the DNS results in narrow domains. We also employ the single-mode equations to analyze the influence of active salinity, introducing a salinity contribution to the buoyancy, but with a smaller diffusivity than the temperature. The single-mode solutions are able to capture the stabilizing effect of an imposed salinity gradient and describe the standing and traveling wave behaviors observed in DNS. The Sherwood numbers obtained from single-mode solutions show a scaling law with the Lewis number that is close to the DNS computations with passive or active salinity. This work demonstrates that single-mode solutions can be successfully applied to this system whenever periodic or no-flux boundary conditions apply in the horizontal.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2023541
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10448603
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Fluids
- Volume:
- 7
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 2311-5521
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 373
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids7120373
