Inclined Turbulent Thermal Convection in Liquid Sodium (Pr 0.009) in a Cylindrical Container of the Aspect Ratio One
Inclined turbulent thermal convection in liquid sodium Lukas Zwirner1, Ruslan Khalilov2, Ilya Kolesnichenko2, Andrey Mamykin2, Sergei Mandrykin2, Alexander Pavlinov2, Alexander Shestakov2, Andrei Teimurazov2, Peter Frick2 & Olga Shishkina1 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 G¨ottingen, Germany 2Institute of Continuous Media Mechanics, Korolyov 1, Perm, 614013, Russia Abstract Inclined turbulent thermal convection by large Rayleigh numbers in extremely small-Prandtl-number fluids is studied based on results of both, measurements and high-resolution numerical simulations. The Prandtl number Pr ≈ 0.0093 considered in the experiments and the Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) and Pr = 0.0094 considered in the Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) correspond to liquid sodium, which is used in the experiments. Also similar are the studied Rayleigh numbers, which are, respectively, Ra = 1.67 × 107 in the DNS, Ra = 1.5 × 107 in the LES and Ra = 1.42 × 107 in the measurements. The working convection cell is a cylinder with equal height and diameter, where one circular surface is heated and another one is cooled. The cylinder axis is inclined with respect to the vertical and the inclination ◦ ◦ angle varies from β = 0 , which corresponds to a Rayleigh–B´enard configuration (RBC), to β = 90 , as in a vertical convection (VC) setup. The turbulent heat and momentum transport as well as time-averaged and instantaneous flow structures and their evolution in time are studied in detail, for different inclination angles, and are illustrated also by supplementary videos, obtained from the DNS and experimental data. To investigate the scaling relations of the mean heat and momentum transport in the limiting cases of RBC and VC configurations, additional measurements are conducted for about one decade of the Rayleigh numbers around Ra = 107 and Pr ≈ 0.009.
[Show full text]