Thermal convection in a horizontal plane Couette flow

1971 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Davies-Jones

We investigate the behaviour of infinitesimal perturbations introduced into an unstably stratified horizontal Couette flow. We assume that the fluid is Boussinesq and contained in an infinite conducting rectangular channel which is uniformly heated from below. The sidewalls are rigid and the Couette flow is generated by moving them with equal and opposite velocities along the channel. The top and bottom are assumed to be free so that we can separate variables.Without shear, the preferred modes of convection closely resemble transverse ‘finite rolls’ (Davies-Jones 1970). Shear increases the critical wavelength so that the preferred modes become longitudinally elongated cells, or even longitudinal rolls in some cases. The critical Rayleigh number increases quite rapidly at fist with Reynolds number, but at higher Reynolds numbers it levels off to a constant value (which cannot be greater than the shear-independent Rayleigh number at which longitudinal disturbances fist become unstable).We also find that the disturbances are tilted in the same direction as the shear, and that the marginally stable ones transfer kinetic energy from the mean flow to the perturbations. Except at low Reynolds numbers, the long wave perturbations gain more energy through the conversion of mean flow kinetic energy than through the release of potential energy, even though the instability is convective in origin.

1995 ◽  
Vol 286 ◽  
pp. 291-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut H. Bech ◽  
Nils Tillmark ◽  
P. Henrik Alfredsson ◽  
Helge I. Andersson

The turbulent structure in plane Couette flow at low Reynolds numbers is studied using data obtained both from numerical simulation and physical experiments. It is shown that the near-wall turbulence structure is quite similar to what has earlier been found in plane Poiseuille flow; however, there are also some large differences especially regarding Reynolds stress production. The commonly held view that the maximum in Reynolds stress close to the wall in Poiseuille and boundary layer flows is due to the turbulence-generating events must be modified as plane Couette flow does not exhibit such a maximum, although the near-wall coherent structures are quite similar. For two-dimensional mean flow, turbulence production occurs only for the streamwise fluctuations, and the present study shows the importance of the pressure—strain redistribution in connection with the near-wall coherent events.


1978 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. Kelly ◽  
D. Pal

Thermal convection in a fluid contained between two rigid walls with different mean temperatures is considered when either spatially periodic temperatures are prescribed at the walls or surface corrugations exist. The amplitudes of the spatial non-uniformities are assumed to be small, and the wavelength is set equal to the critical wavelength for the onset of Rayleigh-Bénard convection. For values of the mean Rayleigh number below the classical critical value, the mean Nusselt number and the mean flow are found as functions of Rayleigh number, Prandtl number, and modulation amplitude. For values of the Rayleigh number close to the classical critical value, the effects of the non-uniformities are greatly amplified, and the amplitude of convection is then governed by a cubic equation. This equation yields three supercritical states, but only the state linked to a subcritical state is found to be stable.


Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Emanuel A. R. Camacho ◽  
Fernando M. S. P. Neves ◽  
André R. R. Silva ◽  
Jorge M. M. Barata

Natural flight has consistently been the wellspring of many creative minds, yet recreating the propulsive systems of natural flyers is quite hard and challenging. Regarding propulsive systems design, biomimetics offers a wide variety of solutions that can be applied at low Reynolds numbers, achieving high performance and maneuverability systems. The main goal of the current work is to computationally investigate the thrust-power intricacies while operating at different Reynolds numbers, reduced frequencies, nondimensional amplitudes, and mean angles of attack of the oscillatory motion of a NACA0012 airfoil. Simulations are performed utilizing a RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) approach for a Reynolds number between 8.5×103 and 3.4×104, reduced frequencies within 1 and 5, and Strouhal numbers from 0.1 to 0.4. The influence of the mean angle-of-attack is also studied in the range of 0∘ to 10∘. The outcomes show ideal operational conditions for the diverse Reynolds numbers, and results regarding thrust-power correlations and the influence of the mean angle-of-attack on the aerodynamic coefficients and the propulsive efficiency are widely explored.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 2294-2314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Elipot ◽  
Lisa M. Beal

AbstractThe Agulhas Current intermittently undergoes dramatic offshore excursions from its mean path because of the downstream passage of mesoscale solitary meanders or Natal pulses. New observations and analyses are presented of the variability of the current and its meanders using mooring observations from the Agulhas Current Time-Series Experiment (ACT) near 34°S. Using a new rotary EOF method, mesoscale meanders and smaller-scale meanders are differentiated and each captured in a single mode of variance. During mesoscale meanders, an onshore cyclonic circulation and an offshore anticyclonic circulation act together to displace the jet offshore, leading to sudden and strong positive conversion of kinetic energy from the mean flow to the meander via nonlinear interactions. Smaller meanders are principally represented by a single cyclonic circulation spanning the entire jet that acts to displace the jet without extracting kinetic energy from the mean flow. Synthesizing in situ observations with altimeter data leads to an account of the number of mesoscale meanders at 34°S: 1.6 yr−1 on average, in agreement with a recent analysis by Rouault and Penven (2011) and significantly less than previously understood. The links between meanders and the arrival of Mozambique Channel eddies or Madagascar dipoles at the western boundary upstream are found to be robust in the 20-yr altimeter record. Yet, only a small fraction of anomalies arriving at the western boundary result in meanders, and of those, two-thirds can be related to ring shedding. Most Agulhas rings are shed independently of meanders.


1994 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. 586-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. L. Andrew ◽  
Wing-fai Ng

The turbulent character of the supersonic wake of a linear cascade of fan airfoils has been studied using a two-component laser-doppler anemometer. The cascade was tested in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University intermittent wind tunnel facility, where the Mach and Reynolds numbers were 2.36 and 4.8 × 106, respectively. In addition to mean flow measurements, Reynolds normal and shear stresses were measured as functions of cascade incidence angle and streamwise locations spanning the near-wake and the far-wake. The extremities of profiles of both the mean and turbulent wake properties´ were found to be strongly influenced by upstream shock-boundary -layer interactions, the strength of which varied with cascade incidence. In contrast, the peak levels of turbulence properties within the shear layer were found to be largely independent of incidence, and could be characterized in terms of the streamwise position only. The velocity defect turbulence level was found to be 23 percent, and the generally accepted value of the turbulence structural coefficient of 0.30 was found to be valid for this flow. The degree of similarity of the mean flow wake profiles was established, and those profiles demonstrating the most similarity were found to approach a state of equilibrium between the mean and turbulent properties. In general, this wake flow may be described as a classical free shear flow, upon which the influence of upstream shock-boundary-layer interactions has been superimposed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 583 ◽  
pp. 133-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. M. NIMMO SMITH ◽  
J. KATZ ◽  
T. R. OSBORN

Six sets of particle image velocimetry (PIV) data from the bottom boundary layer of the coastal ocean are examined. The data represent periods of high, moderate and weak mean flow relative to the amplitude of wave-induced motion, which correspond to high, moderate and low Reynolds numbers based on the Taylor microscale (Re). The two-dimensional PIV velocity distributions enable spatial filtering to calculate some of the subgrid-scale (SGS) stresses, from which we can estimate the SGS dissipation, and evaluate the performance of typically used SGS stress models. The previously reported mismatch between the SGS and viscous dissipation at moderate and low Reynolds numbers appears to be related to the sparsity of large vortical structures that dominate energy fluxes.Conditional sampling of SGS stresses and dissipation based on wave phase using Hilbert transforms demonstrate persistent and repeatable direct effects of large-scale but weak straining by the waves on the SGS energy flux at small scales. The SGS energy flux is phase-dependent, peaking when the streamwise-wave-induced velocity is accelerating, and lower when this velocity is decelerating. Combined with strain rate generated by the mean flow, the streamwise wave strain causes negative energy flux (backscatter), whereas the vertical wave strain causes a positive flux. The phase-dependent variations and differences between horizontal and vertical contributions to the cascading process extend to strains that are substantially higher than the wave-induced motion. These trends may explain the measured difference between spatial energy spectra of streamwise velocity fluctuations and spectra of the wall-normal component, i.e. the formation of spectral bumps in the spectra of the streamwise component at the wavenumbers for the transition between inertial and dissipation scales.All the model coefficients of typical SGS stress models measured here are phase dependent and show similar trends. Thus, the variations of measured SGS dissipation with phase are larger than those predicted by the model variables. In addition, the measured coefficients of the static Smagorinsky SGS stress model decrease with decreasing turbulence levels, and increase with filter size. The dynamic model provides higher correlation coefficients than the Smagorinsky model, but the substantial fluctuations in their values indicate that ensemble averaging is required. The ‘global’ dynamic model coefficients indicate that the use of a scale-dependent dynamic model may be appropriate. The structure function model yields poor correlation coefficients and is found to be over-dissipative under all but the highest turbulence levels. The nonlinear model has higher correlations with measured stresses, as expected, but it also does not reproduce the trends with wave phase.


2014 ◽  
Vol 755 ◽  
pp. 397-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng Wang ◽  
James C. McWilliams ◽  
Claire Ménesguen

AbstractThe linear instability of several rotating, stably stratified, interior vertical shear flows $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}\overline{U}(z)$ is calculated in Boussinesq equations. Two types of baroclinic, ageostrophic instability, AI1 and AI2, are found in odd-symmetric $\overline{U}(z)$ for intermediate Rossby number ($\mathit{Ro}$). AI1 has zero frequency; it appears in a continuous transformation of the unstable mode properties between classic baroclinic instability (BCI) and centrifugal instability (CI). It begins to occur at intermediate $\mathit{Ro}$ values and horizontal wavenumbers ($k,l$) that are far from $l= 0$ or $k = 0$, where the growth rate of BCI or CI is the strongest. AI1 grows by drawing kinetic energy from the mean flow, and the perturbation converts kinetic energy to potential energy. The instability AI2 has inertia critical layers (ICL); hence it is associated with inertia-gravity waves. For an unstable AI2 mode, the coupling is either between an interior balanced shear wave and an inertia-gravity wave (BG), or between two inertia-gravity waves (GG). The main energy source for an unstable BG mode is the mean kinetic energy, while the main energy source for an unstable GG mode is the mean available potential energy. AI1 and BG type AI2 occur in the neighbourhood of $A-S= 0$ (a sign change in the difference between absolute vertical vorticity and horizontal strain rate in isentropic coordinates; see McWilliams et al., Phys. Fluids, vol. 10, 1998, pp. 3178–3184), while GG type AI2 arises beyond this condition. Both AI1 and AI2 are unbalanced instabilities; they serve as an initiation of a possible local route for the loss of balance in 3D interior flows, leading to an efficient energy transfer to small scales.


Author(s):  
Davis W. Hoffman ◽  
Laura Villafañe ◽  
Christopher J. Elkins ◽  
John K. Eaton

Abstract Three-dimensional, three-component time-averaged velocity fields have been measured within a low-speed centrifugal fan with forward curved blades. The model investigated is representative of fans commonly used in automotive HVAC applications. The flow was analyzed at two Reynolds numbers for the same ratio of blade rotational speed to outlet flow velocity. The flow patterns inside the volute were found to have weak sensitivity to Reynolds number. A pair of counter-rotating vortices evolve circumferentially within the volute with positive and negative helicity in the upper and lower regions, respectively. Measurements have been further extended to capture phase-resolved flow features by synchronizing the data acquisition with the blade passing frequency. The mean flow field through each blade passage is presented including the jet-wake structure extending from the blade and the separation zone on the suction side of the blade leading edge.


2015 ◽  
Vol 782 ◽  
pp. 333-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten van Reeuwijk ◽  
John Craske

We discuss energetic restrictions on the entrainment coefficient${\it\alpha}$for axisymmetric jets and plumes. The resulting entrainment relation includes contributions from the mean flow, turbulence and pressure, fundamentally linking${\it\alpha}$to the production of turbulence kinetic energy, the plume Richardson number$\mathit{Ri}$and the profile coefficients associated with the shape of the buoyancy and velocity profiles. This entrainment relation generalises the work by Kaminskiet al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 526, 2005, pp. 361–376) and Fox (J. Geophys. Res., vol. 75, 1970, pp. 6818–6835). The energetic viewpoint provides a unified framework with which to analyse the classical entrainment models implied by the plume theories of Mortonet al.(Proc. R. Soc. Lond.A, vol. 234, 1955, pp. 1–23) and Priestley & Ball (Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., vol. 81, 1954, pp. 144–157). Data for pure jets and plumes in unstratified environments indicate that to first order the physics is captured by the Priestley and Ball entrainment model, implying that (1) the profile coefficient associated with the production of turbulence kinetic energy has approximately the same value for pure plumes and jets, (2) the value of${\it\alpha}$for a pure plume is roughly a factor of$5/3$larger than for a jet and (3) the enhanced entrainment coefficient in plumes is primarily associated with the behaviour of the mean flow and not with buoyancy-enhanced turbulence. Theoretical suggestions are made on how entrainment can be systematically studied by creating constant-$\mathit{Ri}$flows in a numerical simulation or laboratory experiment.


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