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Updated: Oct 8, 2025

Uncoupling Coriolis Force and Rotating Buoyancy Effects on Full-Field Heat Transfer Properties of a Rotating Channel
Published on: October 5, 2018
Centrifugal-Force-Induced Flow Bifurcations in Turbulent Thermal Convection
Yun-Bing Hu1,2, Shi-Di Huang1,2,3, Yi-Chao Xie2,4
1Center for Complex Flows and Soft Matter Research and Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Abstract:
An important and unresolved issue in rotating thermal turbulence is when the flow starts to feel the centrifugal effect. This onset problem is studied here by a novel experiment in which the centrifugal force can be varied over a wide range at fixed Rossby numbers by offsetting the apparatus from the rotation axis. Our experiment clearly shows that the centrifugal force starts to separate the hot and cold fluids at the onset Froude number 0.04. Additionally, this flow bifurcation leads to an unexpected heat transport enhancement and the existence of an optimal state. Based on the dynamical balance and characteristics of local flow structures, both the onset and optimal states are quantitatively explained.
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