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Reduced flow reversals in turbulent convection in the absence of corner vortices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2020

Xin Chen Open the ORCID record for Xin Chen [Opens in a new window] ,
Dong-Pu Wang Open the ORCID record for Dong-Pu Wang [Opens in a new window]  and
Heng-Dong Xi Open the ORCID record for Heng-Dong Xi [Opens in a new window]
Xin Chen
Affiliation:
School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, PR China
Dong-Pu Wang
Affiliation:
School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, PR China
Heng-Dong Xi*
Affiliation:
School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, PR China
*
†Email address for correspondence: hengdongxi@nwpu.edu.cn
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Abstract

We report a comparative experimental study of the reversal of the large-scale circulation in turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a quasi-two-dimensional corner-less cell where the corner vortices are absent and in a quasi-two-dimensional normal cell where the corner vortices are present. It is found that in the corner-less cell the reversal frequency exhibits a slow decrease followed by a fast decrease with increasing Rayleigh number $Ra$, separated by a transitional $Ra$ ($Ra_{t,r}$). The transition is similar to that in the normal cell, and $Ra_{t,r}$ is almost the same for both cells. Despite the similarities, the reversal frequency is greatly reduced in the corner-less cell. The reduction of the reversal frequency is more significant, in terms of both the amplitude and the scaling exponent, in the high-$Ra$ regime. In addition, we classified the reversals into main-vortex-led and corner-vortex-led, and found that both types exist in the normal cell while only the former exists in the corner-less cell. The frequency of main-vortex-led reversal in the normal cell is found to be in excellent agreement with the frequency of reversals in the corner-less cell. Our results reveal for the first time the quantitative role of the corner vortices in the occurrence of the reversals of the large-scale circulation.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulent convection Vortex Flows: Vortex interactions
Type
JFM Rapids
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 891 , 25 May 2020 , R5
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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