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Rapidly rotating turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2006

K. Julien ,
S. Legg ,
J. Mcwilliams  and
J. Werne
K. Julien
Affiliation:
Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder. CO 80309, USA National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA Present address: University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA.
S. Legg
Affiliation:
Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder. CO 80309, USA National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA
J. Mcwilliams
Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA
J. Werne
Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA
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Abstract

Turbulent Boussinesq convection under the influence of rapid rotation (i.e. with comparable characteristic rotation and convection timescales) is studied. The transition to turbulence proceeds through a relatively simple bifurcation sequence, starting with unstable convection rolls at moderate Rayleigh (Ra) and Taylor numbers (Ta) and culminating in a state dominated by coherent plume structures at high Ra and Ta. Like non-rotating turbulent convection, the rapidly rotating state exhibits a simple power-law dependence on Ra for all statistical properties of the flow. When the fluid layer is bounded by no-slip surfaces, the convective heat transport (Nu − 1, where Nu is the Nusselt number) exhibits scaling with Ra2/7 similar to non-rotating laboratory experiments. When the boundaries are stress free, the heat transport obeys ‘classical’ scaling (Ra1/3) for a limited range in Ra, then appears to undergo a transition to a different law at Ra ≈ 4 × 107. Important dynamical differences between rotating and non-rotating convection are observed: aside from the (expected) differences in the boundary layers due to Ekman pumping effects, angular momentum conservation forces all plume structures created at flow-convergent sites of the heated and cooled boundaries to spin-up cyclonically; the resulting plume/cyclones undergo strong vortex-vortex interactions which dramatically alter the mean state of the flow and result in a finite background temperature gradient as Ra → ∞, holding Ra/Ta fixed.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 322 , 10 September 1996 , pp. 243 - 273
Copyright
© 1996 Cambridge University Press

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