Effect of polymer additives on heat transport and large-scale circulation in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

2017 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian-Ping Cheng ◽  
Hong-Na Zhang ◽  
Wei-Hua Cai ◽  
Si-Ning Li ◽  
Feng-Chen Li
2009 ◽  
Vol 638 ◽  
pp. 383-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
ERIC BROWN ◽  
GUENTER AHLERS

In agreement with a recent experimental discovery by Xi et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 102, 2009, paper no. 044503), we also find a sloshing mode in experiments on the large-scale circulation (LSC) of turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a cylindrical sample of aspect ratio one. The sloshing mode has the same frequency as the torsional oscillation discovered by Funfschilling & Ahlers (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 92, 2004, paper no. 1945022004). We show that both modes can be described by an extension of a model developed previously Brown & Ahlers (Phys. Fluids, vol. 20, 2008, pp. 105105-1–105105-15; Phys. Fluids, vol. 20, 2008, pp. 075101-1–075101-16). The extension consists of permitting a lateral displacement of the LSC circulation plane away from the vertical centreline of the sample as well as a variation of the displacement with height (such displacements had been excluded in the original model). Pressure gradients produced by the sidewall of the container on average centre the plane of the LSC so that it prefers to reach its longest diameter. If the LSC is displaced away from this diameter, the walls provide a restoring force. Turbulent fluctuations drive the LSC away from the central alignment, and combined with the restoring force they lead to oscillations. These oscillations are advected along with the LSC. This model yields the correct wavenumber and phase of the oscillations, as well as estimates of the frequency, amplitude and probability distributions of the displacements.


2016 ◽  
Vol 794 ◽  
pp. 639-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi-Di Huang ◽  
Ke-Qing Xia

We report an experimental study of confinement effects in quasi-2-D turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection. The experiments were conducted in five rectangular cells with their height $H$ and length $L$ being the same and fixed, while the width $W$ was different for each cell to produce lateral aspect ratios (${\it\Gamma}=W/H$) of 0.6, 0.3, 0.2, 0.15 and 0.1. Direct flow field measurements reveal that the large-scale flow slows down as ${\it\Gamma}$ decreases and there are more plumes travelling through the bulk region. Moreover, the reversal frequency of the large-scale flow is found to increase drastically in smaller ${\it\Gamma}$ cells, by more than 1000-fold for the highest value of Rayleigh number reached in the experiment. The reversal frequency can be well described by a stochastic model developed by Ni et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 778, 2015, R5) and the probability density functions (PDF) of the time interval between successive reversals are found to follow Poisson statistics as in the 3-D system. It is further observed that the bulk temperature fluctuation increases significantly and its PDF changes from exponential to Gaussian as ${\it\Gamma}$ decreases. The influences of geometric confinement on the global heat transport are also investigated. The measured Nu–Ra relationship suggests that, as the lateral aspect ratio decreases, the relative weight of the boundary layer contribution in the global heat transport increases compared to that from the bulk. These results demonstrate that in the quasi-2-D geometry, geometric confinement has strong effects on both the global and local properties in turbulent convective flows, which are very different from the previous findings in 3-D and true 2-D systems.


2015 ◽  
Vol 778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin-Qiang Zhong ◽  
Sebastian Sterl ◽  
Hui-Min Li

We present measurements of the azimuthal rotation velocity $\dot{{\it\theta}}(t)$ and thermal amplitude ${\it\delta}(t)$ of the large-scale circulation in turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection with modulated rotation. Both $\dot{{\it\theta}}(t)$ and ${\it\delta}(t)$ exhibit clear oscillations at the modulation frequency ${\it\omega}$. Fluid acceleration driven by oscillating Coriolis force causes an increasing phase lag in $\dot{{\it\theta}}(t)$ when ${\it\omega}$ increases. The applied modulation produces oscillatory boundary layers and the resulting time-varying viscous drag modifies ${\it\delta}(t)$ periodically. Oscillation of $\dot{{\it\theta}}(t)$ with maximum amplitude occurs at a finite modulation frequency ${\it\omega}^{\ast }$. Such a resonance-like phenomenon is interpreted as a result of optimal coupling of ${\it\delta}(t)$ to the modulated rotation velocity. We show that an extended large-scale circulation model with a relaxation time for ${\it\delta}(t)$ in response to the modulated rotation provides predictions in close agreement with the experimental results.


2012 ◽  
Vol 472-475 ◽  
pp. 1283-1288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chen Hui Zheng ◽  
Chang Feng Li ◽  
Hua Hong Jiang

In this study, the Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) model combined with the Cross Viscosity Equation is used, applied to the soft turbulence regime (Ra =5×105~4×107) and hard turbulence regime (Ra>4×107) of Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC). The relation curves between heat transport (Nusselt number) and other parameters, as well as flow pattern changes of RBC are obtained for the cases with different Rayleigh number and concentration of the polymer additive. The simulations show that the presence of polymer additive can lead to an enhancement of the heat transfer with larger effect in the hard turbulence regime than those in the soft turbulence regime. It is also shown that in the soft turbulence regime the reversal cycles are shorter than in hard turbulence regime. The symmetric vortices in the diagonal corner of enclosed space shrink and the velocities of large-scale circulation (LSC) increase accordingly.


2009 ◽  
Vol 630 ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
QUAN ZHOU ◽  
HENG-DONG XI ◽  
SHENG-QI ZHOU ◽  
CHAO SUN ◽  
KE-QING XIA

We report an experimental study of the large-scale circulation (LSC) in a turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection cell with aspect ratio unity. The temperature-extrema-extraction (TEE) method for obtaining the dynamic information of the LSC is presented. With this method, the azimuthal angular positions of the hot ascending and cold descending flows along the sidewall are identified from the measured instantaneous azimuthal temperature profile. The motion of the LSC is then decomposed into two different modes based on these two angles: the azimuthal mode and the translational or sloshing mode that is perpendicular to the vertical circulation plane of the LSC. Comparing to the previous sinusoidal-fitting (SF) method, it is found that both the TEE and the SF methods give the same information about the azimuthal motion of the LSC, but the TEE method in addition can provide information about the sloshing motion of the LSC. The sloshing motion is found to oscillate time-periodically around the cell's central vertical axis with an amplitude being nearly independent of the turbulent intensity and to have a π/2 phase difference with the torsional mode. It is further found that the azimuthal angular positions of the hot ascending and cold descending flows oscillate out of phase with each other by π, which leads to the observations of the torsional mode when these two flows are near the top and the bottom plates, respectively, and of the sloshing mode when they are both near the mid-height plane. A direct velocity measurement further confirms the existence of the bulk sloshing mode of the flow field.


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