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Effects of rotation on the bulk turbulent convection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2019

Francesco Toselli Open the ORCID record for Francesco Toselli [Opens in a new window] ,
Stefano Musacchio  and
Guido Boffetta
Francesco Toselli*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, Università di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy
Stefano Musacchio
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, Università di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy
Guido Boffetta
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN, Università di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy
*
†Email address for correspondence: francesco.toselli@unito.it
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Abstract

We study rotating homogeneous turbulent convection forced by a mean vertical temperature gradient by means of direct numerical simulations in the Boussinesq approximation in a rotating frame. In the absence of rotation, our results are in agreement with the ‘ultimate regime of thermal convection’ for the scaling of the Nusselt and Reynolds numbers versus Rayleigh and Prandtl numbers. Rotation is found to increase both $Nu$ and $Re$ at fixed $Ra$ with a maximum enhancement for intermediate values of the Rossby numbers, qualitatively similar, but with stronger intensity, to what is observed in Rayleigh–Bénard rotating convection. Our results are interpreted in terms of a quasi-bidimensionalization of the flow with the formation of columnar structures displaying strong correlation between the temperature and the vertical velocity fields.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation Turbulent Flows: Rotating turbulence
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 881 , 25 December 2019 , pp. 648 - 659
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Copyright
© 2019 Cambridge University Press 

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