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Published on: March 11, 2020
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Supergravitational turbulent thermal convection
Hechuan Jiang1,2, Xiaojue Zhu3, Dongpu Wang1,2
1Center for Combustion Energy, Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of MoE, and Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Science Advances
|October 3, 2020
Summary
This study boosts Rayleigh number in thermal convection using rapid rotation. High Rayleigh number turbulent convection shows enhanced heat transfer and zonal flow, improving understanding of geophysical and astrophysical systems.
Area of Science:
- Fluid dynamics
- Geophysics
- Heat transfer
Background:
- High-Rayleigh number convective turbulence is crucial in Earth's atmosphere, oceans, planetary cores, and energy systems.
- Understanding turbulent thermal convection at high Rayleigh numbers is essential for various scientific and industrial applications.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel method for increasing the Rayleigh number in thermal convection.
- To investigate the behavior of turbulent thermal convection under strong Coriolis effects induced by rapid rotation.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing centrifugal acceleration by rapidly rotating a cylindrical annulus.
- Achieving an effective gravity of 60 times Earth's gravity to enhance the Rayleigh number.
- Analyzing the scaling exponent of Nusselt number versus Rayleigh number in a strongly rotating system.
Main Results:
- The scaling exponent of Nusselt number versus Rayleigh number exceeds one-third at sufficiently high Rayleigh numbers.
- Convective rolls were observed to revolve in a prograde direction, indicating the emergence of zonal flow.
- Demonstrated a method to achieve and study high-Rayleigh number turbulent thermal convection.
Conclusions:
- Rapid rotation and centrifugal acceleration offer a viable approach to explore high-Rayleigh number turbulent thermal convection.
- The findings enhance the understanding of heat transfer and flow dynamics in rotating geophysical and astrophysical systems.
- The emergence of zonal flow in strongly rotating systems is confirmed and characterized.
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