Diffusivity-Free Turbulence in Liquid Metal Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection Experiments

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Abbate, Jewel A., Xu, Yufan, Vogt, Tobias, Horn, Susanne, Julien, Keith, Aurnou, Jonathan M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Abbate, Jewel A.
Xu, Yufan
Vogt, Tobias
Horn, Susanne
Julien, Keith
Aurnou, Jonathan M.
author_facet Abbate, Jewel A.
Xu, Yufan
Vogt, Tobias
Horn, Susanne
Julien, Keith
Aurnou, Jonathan M.
contents Convection in planets and stars is predicted to occur in the "ultimate regime'' of diffusivity-free, rapidly rotating turbulence, in which flows are characteristically unaffected by viscous and thermal diffusion. Boundary layer diffusion, however, has historically hindered experimental study of this regime. Here, we utilize the boundary-independent oscillatory thermal-inertial mode of rotating convection to realize the diffusivity-free scaling in liquid metal laboratory experiments. This oscillatory style of convection arises in rotating liquid metals (low Prandtl number fluids) and is driven by the temperature gradient in the fluid bulk, thus remaining independent of diffusive boundary dynamics. We triply verify the existence of the diffusivity-free regime via measurements of heat transfer efficiency $Nu$, dimensionless flow velocities $Re$, and internal temperature anomalies $θ$, all of which are in quantitative agreement with planar asymptotically-reduced models. Achieving the theoretical diffusivity-free scalings in desktop-sized laboratory experiments provides the validation necessary to extrapolate and predict the convective flows in remote geophysical and astrophysical systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_11226
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Diffusivity-Free Turbulence in Liquid Metal Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection Experiments
Abbate, Jewel A.
Xu, Yufan
Vogt, Tobias
Horn, Susanne
Julien, Keith
Aurnou, Jonathan M.
Fluid Dynamics
Geophysics
Convection in planets and stars is predicted to occur in the "ultimate regime'' of diffusivity-free, rapidly rotating turbulence, in which flows are characteristically unaffected by viscous and thermal diffusion. Boundary layer diffusion, however, has historically hindered experimental study of this regime. Here, we utilize the boundary-independent oscillatory thermal-inertial mode of rotating convection to realize the diffusivity-free scaling in liquid metal laboratory experiments. This oscillatory style of convection arises in rotating liquid metals (low Prandtl number fluids) and is driven by the temperature gradient in the fluid bulk, thus remaining independent of diffusive boundary dynamics. We triply verify the existence of the diffusivity-free regime via measurements of heat transfer efficiency $Nu$, dimensionless flow velocities $Re$, and internal temperature anomalies $θ$, all of which are in quantitative agreement with planar asymptotically-reduced models. Achieving the theoretical diffusivity-free scalings in desktop-sized laboratory experiments provides the validation necessary to extrapolate and predict the convective flows in remote geophysical and astrophysical systems.
title Diffusivity-Free Turbulence in Liquid Metal Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection Experiments
topic Fluid Dynamics
Geophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.11226