Numerical simulations of 3D, rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection are performed using an asymptotic quasi-geostrophic model that incorporates the effects of no-slip boundaries through (i) parameterized Ekman pumping boundary conditions, and (ii) a thermal wind boundary layer that regularizes the enhanced thermal fluctuations induced by pumping. The fidelity of the model, obtained by an asymptotic reduction of the Navier-Stokes equations that implicitly enforces a pointwise geostrophic balance, is explored for the first time by comparisons of simulations against the findings of direct numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. Results from these methods have established Ekman pumping as the mechanism responsible for significantly enhancing the vertical heat transport. This asymptotic model demonstrates excellent agreement over a range of thermal forcing for Pr ~1 when compared with results from experiments and DNS at maximal values of their attainable rotation rates, as measured by the Ekman number (E ~ 10^{-7}); good qualitative agreement is achieved for Pr > 1. Similar to studies with stress-free boundaries, four spatially distinct flow morphologies exists. Despite the presence of frictional drag at the upper and/or lower boundaries, a strong non-local inverse cascade of barotropic (i.e., depth-independent) kinetic energy persists in the final regime of geostrophic turbulence and is dominant at large scales. For mixed no-slip/stress-free and no-slip/no-slip boundaries, Ekman friction is found to attenuate the efficiency of the upscale energy transport and, unlike the case of stress-free boundaries, rapidly saturates the barotropic kinetic energy. For no-slip/no-slip boundaries, Ekman friction is strong enough to prevent the development of a coherent dipole vortex condensate. Instead vortex pairs are found to be intermittent, varying in both time and strength.
The dependence of the heat transfer, as measured by the nondimensional Nusselt number $Nu$, on Ekman pumping for rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in an infinite plane layer is examined for fluids with Prandtl number $Pr = 1$. A joint effort utilizing simulations from the Composite Non-hydrostatic Quasi-Geostrophic model (CNH-QGM) and direct numerical simulations (DNS) of the incompressible fluid equations has mapped a wide range of the Rayleigh number $Ra$ - Ekman number $E$ parameter space within the geostrophic regime of rotating convection. Corroboration of the $Nu$-$Ra$ relation…
We present spatial-resolved measurements of the columnar vortex structures in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection. The scaled radial profiles of the azimuthal velocity $u_ϕ(r)$ and vertical vorticity $ω(r)$ of the vortices are analyzed and compared with the predictions of the asymptotic theory. The results reveal that the asymptotic theory predicts accurately $u_ϕ(r)$ and $ω(r)$ in the geostrophic convection regime, but extension of the theory in the weak rotation regime is needed to interpret the rotation-dependence of the experimental data. Our measurements of the mean velocity, vorticity of…
Numerical data for the heat transfer as a function of the Prandtl (Pr) and Rossby (Ro) numbers in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection are presented for Rayleigh number Ra = 10^8. When Ro is fixed the heat transfer enhancement with respect to the non-rotating value shows a maximum as function of Pr. This maximum is due to the reduced efficiency of Ekman pumping when Pr becomes too small or too large. When Pr becomes small, i.e. for large thermal diffusivity, the heat that is carried by the vertical vortices spreads out in the middle of the cell, and Ekman pumping thus becomes less eff…
Quasi-geostrophic (QG) theory describes the dynamics of synoptic scale flows in the trophosphere that are balanced with respect to both acoustic and internal gravity waves. Within this framework, effects of (turbulent) friction near the ground are usually represented by Ekman Layer theory. The troposphere covers roughly the lowest ten kilometers of the atmosphere while Ekman layer heights are typically just a few hundred meters. However, this two-layer asymptotic theory does not explicitly account for substantial changes of the potential temperature stratification due to diabatic heating assoc…
Using direct numerical simulations, we study rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a cylindrical cell for a broad range of Rayleigh, Ekman, and Prandtl numbers from the onset of wall modes to the geostrophic regime, an extremely important one in geophysical and astrophysical contexts. We connect linear wall-mode states that occur prior to the onset of bulk convection with the boundary zonal flow that coexists with turbulent bulk convection in the geostrophic regime through the continuity of length and time scales and of convective heat transport. We quantitatively collapse drift frequency, bo…
In the two-layer quasi-geostrophic model, the friction between the flow at the lower layer and the surface boundary layer, placed beneath the lower layer, is modeled by the Ekman term, which is a linear dissipation term with respect to the horizontal velocity at the lower layer. The Ekman term appears in the governing equations asymmetrically; it is placed at the lower layer, but does not appear at the upper layer. A variation, proposed by Phillips and Salmon, uses extrapolation to place the Ekman term between the lower layer and the surface boundary layer, or at the surface boundary layer. We…
When the classical Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) system is rotated about its vertical axis roughly three regimes can be identified. In regime I (weak rotation) the large scale circulation (LSC) is the dominant feature of the flow. In regime II (moderate rotation) the LSC is replaced by vertically aligned vortices. Regime III (strong rotation) is characterized by suppression of the vertical velocity fluctuations. Using results from experiments and direct numerical simulations of RB convection for a cell with a diameter-to-height aspect ratio equal to one at $Ra \sim 10^8-10^9$ ($Pr=4-6$) and $0 \lesssim…
A flow of electrically conducting fluid in the presence of a steady magnetic field has a tendency to become quasi two-dimensional, i.e. uniform in the direction of the magnetic field, except in thin so-called Hartmann boundary layers. The condition for this tendency is that of a strong magnetic field, corresponding to large values of the dimensionless Hartmann number (Ha >> 1). This is analogous to the case of low Ekman number rotating flows, with Ekman layers replacing Hartmann layers. This has been at the origin of the homogeneous model for flows in a rotating frame of reference, with its ri…
We study nonlinear convection in a rapidly rotating sphere with internal heating for values of the Prandtl number relevant for liquid metals ($Pr\in[10^{-2},10^{-1}]$). We use a numerical model based on the quasi-geostrophic approximation, in which variations of the axial vorticity along the rotation axis are neglected, whereas the temperature field is fully three-dimensional. We identify two separate branches of convection close to onset: (i) a well-known weak branch for Ekman numbers greater than $10^{-6}$, which is continuous at the onset (supercritical bifurcation) and consists of thermal …
Experimental and numerical data for the heat transfer as a function of the Rayleigh-, Prandtl-, and Rossby numbers in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection are presented. For relatively small $Ra ~ 10^8$ and large Pr modest rotation can enhance the heat transfer by up to 30%. At larger Ra there is less heat-transfer enhancement, and at small Pr = 0.7. there is no heat-transfer enhancement at all. We suggest that the small-Pr behavior is due to the breakdown of the heat-transfer-enhancing Ekman pumping because of larger thermal diffusion.
Weakly-rotating turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection was studied experimentally and numerically. With increasing rotation and large enough Rayleigh number an abrupt transition from a turbulent state with nearly rotation-independent heat transport to another turbulent state with enhanced heat transfer is observed at a critical inverse Rossby number $1/Ro_c \simeq 0.4$. Whereas for $1/Ro < 1/Ro_c$ the strength of the large-scale convection-roll is either enhanced or essentially unmodified depending on parameters, its strength is increasingly diminished beyond $1/Ro_c$ where it competes with Ekma…
For rapidly rotating turbulent Rayleigh--Bénard convection in a slender cylindrical cell, experiments and direct numerical simulations reveal a boundary zonal flow (BZF) that replaces the classical large-scale circulation. The BZF is located near the vertical side wall and enables enhanced heat transport there. Although the azimuthal velocity of the BZF is cyclonic (in the rotating frame), the temperature is an anticyclonic traveling wave of mode one whose signature is a bimodal temperature distribution near the radial boundary. The BZF width is found to scale like $Ra^{1/4}Ek^{2/3}$ where the…
We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-B{é}nard convection in a cylindrical convection cell with aspect ratio $Γ= 1/2$. The fluid was helium gas with Prandtl number Pr = 0.7. The range of control parameters was Rayleigh number $4 \times 10^9 < {\rm Ra} < 4 \times 10^{11}$ and Ekman number $2 \times 10^{-7} < {\rm Ek} < 3 \times 10^{-5}$(corresponding to Taylor number $4 \times 10^9 < {\rm Ta} < 1 \times 10^{14}$ and convective Rossby number $0.07 < {\rm Ro} < 5$). We determine the crossover from weakly rotating turbulent convection to rotation dominated geos…
It is a well established result of linear theory that the influence of differing mechanical boundary conditions, i.e., stress-free or no-slip, on the primary instability in rotating convection becomes asymptotically small in the limit of rapid rotation. This is accounted for by the diminishing impact of the viscous stresses exerted within Ekman boundary layers and the associated vertical momentum transport by Ekman pumping. By contrast, in the nonlinear regime recent experiments and supporting simulations are now providing evidence that the efficiency of heat transport remains strongly influen…
The effect of domain anisotropy on the inverse cascade occurring within the geostrophic turbulence regime of rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RRBC) is investigated. In periodic domains with square cross-section in the horizontal a domain-filling dipole state is present. For rectangular periodic domains a Kolmogorov-like flow consisting of a periodic array of alternating unidirectional jets with embedded vortices is observed, together with an underlying weak meandering transverse jet. Similar transitions occurring in weakly dissipative two-dimensional flows driven by externally impo…
The heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection is considered in the limit of rapid rotation (small Ekman number $E$) and strong thermal forcing (large Rayleigh number $Ra$). The analysis proceeds from a set of asymptotically reduced equations appropriate for rotationally constrained dynamics; the conjectured range of validity for these equations is $Ra \lesssim E^{-8/5}$. A rigorous bound on heat transport of $Nu \le 20.56Ra^3E^4$ is derived in the limit of infinite Prandtl number using the background method. We demonstrate that the exponent in this bound cannot be improved on using…
The possibility of subcritical behaviour in the geostrophic turbulence regime of rapidly rotating thermally driven convection is explored. In this regime a non-local inverse energy transfer may compete with the more traditional and local direct cascade. We show that, even for control parameters for which no inverse cascade has previously been observed, a subcritical transition towards a large-scale vortex state can occur when the system is initialized with a vortex dipole of finite amplitude. This new example of bistability in a turbulent flow, which may not be specific to rotating convection,…
Numerical simulations of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented for both no slip and free slip boundaries. The goal is to find a criterion distinguishing convective flows dominated by the Coriolis force from those nearly unaffected by rotation. If one uses heat transport as an indicator of which regime the flow is in, one finds that the transition between the flow regimes always occurs at the same value of a certain combination of Reynolds, Prandtl and Ekman numbers for both boundary conditions. If on the other hand one uses the helicity of the velocity field to identify flows nearl…
In a previous paper, Oruba, Soward & Dormy (J.Fluid Mech., vol.818, 2017, pp.205-240) considered the primary quasi-steady geostrophic (QG) motion of a constant density fluid of viscosity $ν$ that occurs during linear spin-down in a cylindrical container of radius $L$ and height $H$, rotating rapidly (angular velocity $Ω$) about its axis of symmetry subject to mixed rigid and stress-free boundary conditions for the case $L=H$. Here, Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) at large $L= 10 H$ and Ekman number $E=ν/H^2Ω=10^{-3}$ reveals structured inertial wave activity on the spin-down time-scale. The …
We study numerically the melting of a horizontal layer of a pure solid above a convecting layer of its fluid rotating about the vertical axis. In the rotating regime studied here, with Rayleigh numbers of order $10^7$, convection takes the form of columnar vortices, the number and size of which depend upon the Ekman and Prandtl numbers, as well as the geometry -- periodic or confined. As the Ekman and Rayleigh numbers vary, the number and average area of vortices vary in inverse proportion, becoming thinner and more numerous with decreasing Ekman number. The vortices transport heat to the phas…
In turbulent thermal convection in cylindrical samples of aspect ratio Γ= D/L (D is the diameter and L the height) the Nusselt number Nu is enhanced when the sample is rotated about its vertical axis, because of the formation of Ekman vortices that extract additional fluid out of thermal boundary layers at the top and bottom. We show from experiments and direct numerical simulations that the enhancement occurs only above a bifurcation point at a critical inverse Rossby number $1/\Ro_c$, with $1/\Ro_c \propto 1/Γ$. We present a Ginzburg-Landau like model that explains the existence of a bifurca…
We present high-precision experimental and numerical studies of the Nusselt number $Nu$ as functions of the Rayleigh number $Ra$ in geostrophic rotating convection with domain aspect ratio $Γ$ varying from 0.4 to 3.8 and the Ekman number Ek from $2.0{\times}10^{-7}$ to $2.7{\times}10^{-5}$. The heat-transport data $Nu(Ra)$ reveal a gradual transition from buoyancy-dominated to geostrophic convection at large $Ek$, whereas the transition becomes sharp with decreasing $Ek$. We determine the power-law scaling of $Nu{\sim}Ra^γ$, and show that the boundary flows give rise to pronounced enhancement …
We establish rigorous upper bounds on the time-averaged heat transport for a model of rotating Rayleigh-Benard convection between no-slip boundaries at infinite Prandtl number and with Ekman pumping. The analysis is based on the asymptotically reduced equations derived for rotationally constrained dynamics with no-slip boundaries, and hence includes a lower order correction that accounts for the Ekman layer and corresponding Ekman pumping into the bulk. Using the auxiliary functional method we find that, to leading order, the temporally averaged heat transport is bounded above as a function of…
Scale-dependent force balance governs transition to the geostrophic regime in liquid metal rotating convection
State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures and School of Aerospace, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学航天学院机械结构强度与振动国家重点实验室）；Center for Complex Flows and Soft Matter Research and Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学力学与航空航天工程系复杂流动与软物质研究中心）；Research Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University（复旦大学智能复杂系统研究院）；Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学物理系）
We study the destabilization of a shear layer, produced by differential rotation of a rotating axisymmetric container. For small forcing, this produces a shear layer, which has been studied by Stewartson and is almost invariant along the rotation axis. When the forcing increases, instabilities develop. To study the asymptotic regime (very low Ekman number $E$), we develop a quasi-geostrophic two-dimensional model, whose main original feature is to handle the mass conservation correctly, resulting in a divergent two-dimensional flow, and valid for any container provided that the top and bottom …
We consider rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a fluid with a Prandtl number of $Pr = 0.8$ in a cylindrical cell with an aspect ratio $Γ= 1/2$. Direct numerical simulations were performed for the Rayleigh number range $10^5 \leq Ra \leq 10^9$ and the inverse Rossby number range $0 \leq 1/Ro \leq 20$. We propose a method to capture regime transitions based on the decomposition of the velocity field into toroidal and poloidal parts. We identify four different regimes. First, a buoyancy dominated regime occurring as long as the toroidal energy $e_{tor}$ is not affected by rotation and remains…
Rotating Rayleigh--Bénard convection is an oft-employed model system to evaluate the interplay of buoyant forcing and Coriolis forces due to rotation, an eminently relevant interaction of dynamical effects found in many geophysical and astrophysical flows. These flows display extreme values of the governing parameters: large Rayleigh numbers $Ra$, quantifying the strength of thermal forcing, and small Ekman numbers $E$, a parameter inversely proportional to the rotation rate. This leads to the dominant geostrophic balance of forces in the flow between pressure gradient and Coriolis force. The …
Rayleigh--Bénard (RB) convection, the flow in a fluid layer heated from below and cooled from above, is used to analyze the transition to the geostrophic regime of thermal convection. In the geostrophic regime, which is of direct relevance to most geo- and astrophysical flows, the system is strongly rotated while maintaining a sufficiently large thermal driving to generate turbulence. We directly simulate the Navier--Stokes equations for two values of the thermal forcing, i.e. $Ra=10^{10}$ and $Ra=5\cdot10^{10}$, a constant Prandtl number~$Pr=1$, and vary the Ekman number in the range $Ek=1.3\…
In this paper, we present results from an experimental study into turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection forced externally by periodically modulated unidirectional rotation rates. We find that the azimuthal rotation velocity $\dotθ$(t) and thermal amplitude $δ$(t) of the large-scale circulation (LSC) are modulated by the forcing, exhibiting a variety of dynamics including increasing phase delays and a resonant peak in the amplitude of $\dotθ$(t). We also focus on the influence of modulated rotation rates on the frequency of occurrence $η$ of stochastic cessation/reorientation events, and on the …
In this study we consider the effect of a horizontal magnetic field on the Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a finite liquid metal layer contained in a cuboid vessel (200 \times 200 \times 40 mm^3). Laboratory experiments are performed for measuring temperature and flow field in the alloy GaInSn at Prandtl number Pr = 0.03 and in a Rayleigh number range 2.3 \times 10^4 < Ra < 2.6 \times 10^5. The field strength is varied up to a maximum value of 320 mT (Ha = 2470, Q = 6.11 \times 10^6). The magnetic field forces the flow to form two-dimensional rolls parallel to the direction of the field lines. T…
We study rapidly-rotating Boussinesq convection driven by internal heating in a full sphere. We use a numerical model based on the quasi-geostrophic approximation for the velocity field, whereas the temperature field is three-dimensional. This approximation allows us to perform simulations for Ekman numbers down to 1e-8, Prandtl numbers relevant for liquid metals (~0.1) and Reynolds numbers up to 3e4. Persistent zonal flows composed of multiple jets form as a result of the mixing of potential vorticity. For the largest Rayleigh numbers computed, the zonal velocity is larger than the convective…
We perform direct numerical simulations of rotating Rayleigh--Bénard convection of fluids with low ($Pr=0.1$) and high ($Pr=5$) Prandtl numbers in a horizontally periodic layer with no-slip top and bottom boundaries. At both Prandtl numbers, we demonstrate the presence of an upscale transfer of kinetic energy that leads to the development of domain-filling vortical structures. Sufficiently strong buoyant forcing and rotation foster the quasi-two-dimensional turbulent state of the flow, despite the formation of plume-like vertical disturbances promoted by so-called Ekman pumping from the viscou…
Rapidly rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection is studied by combining results from direct numerical simulations (DNS), laboratory experiments and asymptotic modeling. The asymptotic theory is shown to provide a good description of the bulk dynamics at low, but finite Rossby number. However, large deviations from the asymptotically predicted heat transfer scaling are found, with laboratory experiments and DNS consistently yielding much larger Nusselt numbers than expected. These deviations are traced down to dynamically active Ekman boundary layers, which are shown to play an integral part in con…
Many geophysical and astrophysical phenomena are driven by turbulent fluid dynamics, containing behaviors separated by tens of orders of magnitude in scale. While direct simulations have made large strides toward understanding geophysical systems, such models still inhabit modest ranges of the governing parameters that are difficult to extrapolate to planetary settings. The canonical problem of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection provides an alternate approach - isolating the fundamental physics in a reduced setting. Theoretical studies and asymptotically-reduced simulations in rotating convec…
This paper experimentally investigates the convection in a fast rotating Tangent Cylinder (TC), for Ekman numbers down to $E=3.36\times10^{-6}$, in a configuration relevant to the liquid core of the Earth. In the apparatus, the TC results from the Proudman-Taylor constraint incurred by rotating a hemispherical fluid vessel heated in its centre by a protruding heating element of cylindrical shape. The resulting convection that develops above the heater, i.e within the TC, is shown to set in for critical Rayleigh numbers and wavenumbers respectively scaling as $Ra_c\sim E^{4/3}$ and $a_c\sim E^{…
Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection is investigated numerically with the use of an asymptotic model that captures the rapidly rotating, small Ekman number limit, $Ek \rightarrow 0$. The Prandtl number ($Pr$) and the asymptotically scaled Rayleigh number ($\widetilde{Ra} = Ra Ek^{4/3}$, where $Ra$ is the typical Rayleigh number) are varied systematically. For sufficiently vigorous convection, an inverse kinetic energy cascade leads to the formation of a depth-invariant large-scale vortex (LSV). With respect to the kinetic energy, we find a transition from convection dominated states to LSV domi…
We present a new pseudo-spectral open-source code nicknamed pizza. It is dedicated to the study of rapidly-rotating Boussinesq convection under the 2-D spherical quasi-geostrophic approximation, a physical hypothesis that is appropriate to model the turbulent convection that develops in planetary interiors. The code uses a Fourier decomposition in the azimuthal direction and supports both a Chebyshev collocation method and a sparse Chebyshev integration formulation in the cylindrically-radial direction. It supports several temporal discretisation schemes encompassing multi-step time steppers a…
Baroclinic wave dynamics in the Ekman-free rotating rectangular annulus with localized forced plume
Borosil Renewables Limited（玻罗西尔可再生有限公司）；Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay（印度孟买理工学院机械工程系）；Department of Applied mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi（印度德里理工学院应用力学系）
We report heat transfer and temperature profile measurements in laboratory experiments of rapidly rotating convection in water under intense thermal forcing (Rayleigh number $Ra$ as high as $\sim 10^{13}$) and unprecedentedly strong rotational influence (Ekman numbers $E$ as low as $10^{-8}$). Measurements of the mid-height vertical temperature gradient connect quantitatively to predictions from numerical models of asymptotically rapidly rotating convection, separating various flow phenomenologies. Past the limit of validity of the asymptotically-reduced models, we find novel behaviors in a re…
Rapidly rotating convection-driven dynamos are investigated under different kinematic and magnetic boundary conditions using DNS. At a fixed rotation rate, represented by the Ekman number $E=5\times10^{-7}$, the thermal forcing is varied from 2 to 20 times its value at the onset of convection ($\mathcal{R}=Ra/Ra_c=2-20$), keeping the fluid properties constant ($Pr=Pr_m=1$). The statistical behavior, force balance and heat transport characteristics of the dynamos depend on boundary conditions that dictate both boundary layer and the interior dynamics. At a fixed thermal forcing ($\mathcal{R}=3$…
Recently, in Zhang et al. (2020), it was found that in rapidly rotating turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in slender cylindrical containers (with diameter-to-height aspect ratio $Γ=1/2$) filled with a small-Prandtl-number fluid ($Pr \approx0.8$), the Large Scale Circulation (LSC) is suppressed and a Boundary Zonal Flow (BZF) develops near the sidewall, characterized by a bimodal PDF of the temperature, cyclonic fluid motion, and anticyclonic drift of the flow pattern (with respect to the rotating frame). This BZF carries a disproportionate amount ($>60\%$) of the total heat transport …
Dynamos driven by rotating convection in the plane layer geometry are investigated numerically for a range of Ekman number ($E$), magnetic Prandtl number ($Pm$) and Rayleigh number ($Ra$). The primary purpose of the investigation is to compare results of the simulations with previously developed asymptotic theory that is applicable in the limit of rapid rotation. We find that all of the simulations are in the quasi-geostrophic regime in which the Coriolis and pressure gradient forces are approximately balanced at leading order, whereas all other forces, including the Lorentz force, act as pert…
We present an attempt to reach realistic turbulent regime in direct numerical simulations of the geodynamo. We rely on a sequence of three convection-driven simulations in a rapidly rotating spherical shell. The most extreme case reaches towards the Earth's core regime by lowering viscosity (magnetic Prandtl number Pm=0.1) while maintaining vigorous convection (magnetic Reynolds number Rm>500) and rapid rotation (Ekman number E=1e-7), at the limit of what is feasible on today's supercomputers. A detailed and comprehensive analysis highlights several key features matching geomagnetic observatio…
