Andrew Wells

Abstract:

Convection from a buoyancy source distributed over a vertical wall has diverse applications, from the natural ventilation of buildings to the melting of marine terminating glaciers which impact on future sea level. A key challenge involves determining how the rate and mechanisms of turbulent heat transfer should be extrapolated across a range of scales. Ke et al (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 964, 2023, A24) explore transitions in the turbulent flow dynamics using direct numerical simulation of a convective boundary layer at a heated vertical wall. A classical regime of heat transfer, consistent with previous laboratory experiments, gives way with increasing accumulation of buoyancy to an ultimate regime with enhanced heat transfer. The key to this transition lies in a near-wall sublayer, with a switch from laminar buoyancy-driven dynamics to a sublayer dominated by turbulence and shear instability from the mean flow.

Abstract:

<jats:p>Motivated by the mushy zones of sea ice, volcanoes and icy moons of the outer solar system, we perform a theoretical and numerical study of boundary-layer convection along a vertical heated wall in a bounded ideal mushy region. The mush is comprised of a porous and reactive binary alloy with a mixture of saline liquid in a solid matrix, and is studied in the near-eutectic approximation. Here, we demonstrate the existence of four regions and study their behaviour asymptotically. Starting from the bottom of the wall, the four regions are (i) an isotropic corner region; (ii) a buoyancy dominated vertical boundary layer; (iii) an isotropic connection region; and (iv) a horizontal boundary layer at the top boundary with strong gradients of pressure and buoyancy. Scalings from numerical simulations are consistent with the theoretical predictions. Close to the heated wall, the convection in the mushy layer is similar to a rising buoyant plume abruptly stopped at the top, leading to increased pressure and temperature in the upper region, whose impact is discussed as an efficient melting mechanism.</jats:p>

Abstract:

We use well resolved numerical simulations with the Lattice Boltzmann Method to study Rayleigh-B´enard convection in cells with a fractal boundary in two dimensions for P r = 1 and Ra ∈ [10^7 , 10^10]. The fractal boundaries are functions characterized by power spectral densities S(k) that decay with wavenumber, k, as S(k) ∼ k^p (p < 0). The degree of roughness is quantified by the exponent p with p < −3 for smooth (differentiable) surfaces and −3 ≤ p < −1 for rough surfaces with Hausdorff dimension D_f =1/2 (p + 5). By computing the exponent β in power law fits Nu ∼ Ra^β, where Nu and Ra are the Nusselt and the Rayleigh numbers for Ra ∈ [10^8, 10^10], we observe that heat transport scaling increases with roughness over the top two decades of Ra ∈ [10^8, 10^10]. For p = −3.0, −2.0 and −1.5 we find β = 0.288 ± 0.005, 0.329 ± 0.006 and 0.352 ± 0.011, respectively. We also observe that the Reynolds number, Re, scales as Re ∼ Ra^ξ , where ξ ≈ 0.57 over Ra ∈ [10^7, 10^10], for all p used in the study. For a given value of p, the averaged Nu and Re are insensitive to the specific realization of the roughness.