Convection in a rotating annulus uniformly heated from below

1971 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Davies-Jones ◽  
Peter A. Gilman

We present a linear stability analysis, to second order in initial amplitude, of Bénard convection of a Boussinesq fluid in a thin rotating annulus for modest Taylor numbers T ([les ] 104). The work is motivated in part by the desire to study further a mechanism for maintaining, through horizontal Reynolds stresses induced in the convection, the sun's ‘equatorial acceleration’, which has been demonstrated for a rotating convecting spherical shell by Busse & Durney. The annulus is assumed to have stress free, perfectly conducting top and bottom (which allows separation of the equations) and non-conducting non-slip sides. A laboratory experiment which fulfills these conditions (except perhaps the free bottom) is being developed with H. Snyder.We study primarily annuli with gap-width to depth ratios a of order unity. The close, non-slip side-walls produce a number of effects not present in the infinite plane case, including overstability at high Prandtl numbers P, and multiple minima in Rayleigh number R on the stability boundary. The latter may give rise to vacillation. The eigenfunctions for stationary convection for a = 2, T [lsim ] 2000 clearly show momentum of the same sense as the rotation is transported from the inner to the outer half of the annulus, corresponding to transport toward equatorial latitudes on the sphere. The complete second-order solutions for the induced circulations indeed give faster rotation in the outer half, except for large P (> 102), in which case thermal stresses dominate. At all P, this differential rotation is qualitatively a thermal wind. Overstable convective cells, and stationary cells at higher T, induce more complicated differential rotations.

1999 ◽  
Vol 392 ◽  
pp. 213-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLIVER S. KERR ◽  
KIT YEE TANG

A fluid stably stratified by a salinity gradient and enclosed between two vertical boundaries can become unstable when it is subjected to a temperature difference between the walls. The linear stability of such a fluid in a vertical slot is investigated. Errors in earlier results are found, confirming recent results of Young & Rosner (1998). Four different asymptotic regimes on the stability boundary are identified. One of these, the limit of a strong salinity gradient, has previously been analysed. The analyses of the separate asymptotic limits of weak salinity gradient, large temperature difference and small wavenumber are also given. These four cases make up much of the total boundary between stability and instability for double-diffusive instabilities in a vertical slot, and so most of this boundary can be mapped out for general Prandtl numbers and salt/heat diffusivity ratios using these results.


1986 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 469-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. W. Bolton ◽  
F. H. Busse ◽  
R. M. Clever

The analysis of the instabilities of convection rolls in a fluid layer heated from below with no-slip boundaries exhibits a close competition between various oscillatory modes in the range 2 [lsim ] P [lsim ] 12 of the Prandtl number P. In addition to the even-oscillatory instability known from earlier work two new instabilities have been found, each of which is responsible for a small section of the stability boundary of steady rolls. The most interesting property of the new instabilities is their close relationship to the hot-blob oscillations known from experimental studies of convection. In the lower half of the Prandtl-number range considered the B02-mode dominates, which is characterized by two blobs each of slightly hotter and colder fluid circulating around in the convection roll in a spatially and time-periodic fashion. At higher Prandtl numbers the BE 1-mode dominates, which possesses one hot blob (and one cold blob) circulating with the convection velocity. Just outside the stability boundary there exist other growing modes exhibiting three or four blobs which may be observable in experiments.


Shallow cavity flows, driven by horizontal thermal gradients, are analysed over a range of Rayleigh numbers R and Prandtl numbers σ. Emphasis is placed on the limit in which R is comparable in size to the cavity aspect ratio L . Departures from two-dimensional steady Hadley cells, defined by the limit L → ∞ at fixed R and σ, are shown to be associated with nonlinear end effects. Eigenvalue calculations indicate the existence of a critical Prandtl number σ c , below which the core structure is not necessarily parallel with the horizontal boundaries. For σ < σ c the parallel flow core is destroyed at Rayleigh numbers R > R c (σ). Results for the stability boundary R c (σ) are presented.


1991 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 864-872
Author(s):  
A. Hirose ◽  
S. Roy Choudhury ◽  
O. Ishihara

The magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) ballooning mode in tokamaks was analyzed in the compressible limit. The stability boundary becomes strongly dependent on the toroidicity parameter, εn. This was confirmed by a semilocal kinetic dispersion relation that incorporates kinetic resonances of both ions and electrons. The stability boundary found from the kinetic dispersion relation is insensitive to the degree of plasma compressibility. A nonideal MHD analysis revealed a marginally stable drift-Alfven mode described by [Formula: see text] when βθ (poloidal beta) is of order unity.


1977 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. T. Landahl ◽  
W. O. Criminale

The wave-mechanical condition (Landahl 1972) for breakdown of an unsteady laminar flow into strong small-scale secondary instabilities is applied to some simple stratified inviscid shear flows. The cases considered have one or two discrete density interfaces and simple discontinuous or continuous velocity profiles. A primary wavelike disturbance to such a flow produces a perturbation velocity that is discontinuous at a density interface. The resulting instantaneous system, defined as the sum of the mean flow and the primary oscillation, develops a local secondary shear-flow instability that has a group velocity equal to the arithmetic mean of the instantaneous velocities on the two sides of the interface. According to the breakdown criterion, the disturbed flow will become critical whenever this velocity reaches a value equal to the phase velocity of the primary wave. The calculations show that for a single density interface breakdown may occur for low to moderate wave amplitudes in a fairly narrow range of Richardson numbers on the stable side of the stability boundary. On the other hand, in the unstable regime maximum wave slopes of order unity may be reached before breakdown occurs; this conclusion is in qualitative agreement with experiments. When the system includes two density interfaces, it is found that there exists a range of high Richardson numbers far into the stable regime for which breakdown may take place even for very small and zero wave interface deflexions.


1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 1594-1601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiří Klíma ◽  
Larisa Baumane ◽  
Janis Stradinš ◽  
Jiří Volke ◽  
Romualds Gavars

It has been found that the decay in dimethylformamide and dimethylformamide-water mixtures of radical anions in five of the investigated 5-nitrofurans is governed by a second-order reaction. Only the decay of the radical anion generated from 5-nitro-2-furfural III may be described by an equation including parallel first- and second-order reactions; this behaviour is evidently caused by the relatively high stability of the corresponding dianion, this being an intermediate in the reaction path. The presence of a larger conjugated system in the substituent in position 2 results in a decrease of the unpaired electron density in the nitro group and, consequently, an increase in the stability of the corresponding radical anions.


1998 ◽  
Vol 358 ◽  
pp. 357-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. NAGATA

The stability of nonlinear tertiary solutions in rotating plane Couette flow is examined numerically. It is found that the tertiary flows, which bifurcate from two-dimensional streamwise vortex flows, are stable within a certain range of the rotation rate when the Reynolds number is relatively small. The stability boundary is determined by perturbations which are subharmonic in the streamwise direction. As the Reynolds number is increased, the rotation range for the stable tertiary motions is destroyed gradually by oscillatory instabilities. We expect that the tertiary flow is overtaken by time-dependent motions for large Reynolds numbers. The results are compared with the recent experimental observation by Tillmark & Alfredsson (1996).


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