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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. 

Steady two-dimensional Rayleigh–Bénard convection between stress-free isothermal boundaries is studied via numerical computations. We explore properties of steady convective rolls with aspect ratios $${\rm \pi} /5\leqslant \varGamma \leqslant 4{\rm \pi}$$ , where $$\varGamma$$ is the width-to-height ratio for a pair of counter-rotating rolls, over eight orders of magnitude in the Rayleigh number, $$10^3\leqslant Ra\leqslant 10^{11}$$ , and four orders of magnitude in the Prandtl number, $$10^{-2}\leqslant Pr\leqslant 10^2$$ . At large $Ra$ where steady rolls are dynamically unstable, the computed rolls display $$Ra \rightarrow \infty$$ asymptotic scaling. In this regime, the Nusselt number $Nu$ that measures heat transport scales as $$Ra^{1/3}$$ uniformly in $Pr$ . The prefactor of this scaling depends on $$\varGamma$$ and is largest at $$\varGamma \approx 1.9$$ . The Reynolds number $Re$ for large- $Ra$ rolls scales as $$Pr^{-1} Ra^{2/3}$$ with a prefactor that is largest at $$\varGamma \approx 4.5$$ . All of these large- $Ra$ features agree quantitatively with the semi-analytical asymptotic solutions constructed by Chini & Cox ( Phys. Fluids , vol. 21, 2009, 083603). Convergence of $Nu$ and $Re$ to their asymptotic scalings occurs more slowly when $Pr$ is larger and when $$\varGamma$$ is smaller.