Heat transport in the geostrophic regime of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection
RE Ecke, JJ Niemela - Physical Review Letters, 2014 - APS
Physical Review Letters, 2014•APS
We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard
convection in a cylindrical convection cell with an aspect ratio of Γ= 1/2. The fluid is helium
gas with a Prandtl number Pr= 0.7. The range of control parameters for Rayleigh numbers
4× 10 9< Ra< 4× 10 11 and for Ekman numbers 2× 10-7< Ek< 3× 10-5 (corresponding to
Taylor numbers 4× 10 9< Ta< 1× 10 14 and convective Rossby numbers 0.07< Ro< 5). We
determine the transition from weakly rotating turbulent convection to rotation dominated …
convection in a cylindrical convection cell with an aspect ratio of Γ= 1/2. The fluid is helium
gas with a Prandtl number Pr= 0.7. The range of control parameters for Rayleigh numbers
4× 10 9< Ra< 4× 10 11 and for Ekman numbers 2× 10-7< Ek< 3× 10-5 (corresponding to
Taylor numbers 4× 10 9< Ta< 1× 10 14 and convective Rossby numbers 0.07< Ro< 5). We
determine the transition from weakly rotating turbulent convection to rotation dominated …
We report experimental measurements of heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a cylindrical convection cell with an aspect ratio of . The fluid is helium gas with a Prandtl number . The range of control parameters for Rayleigh numbers and for Ekman numbers (corresponding to Taylor numbers and convective Rossby numbers ). We determine the transition from weakly rotating turbulent convection to rotation dominated geostrophic convection through experimental measurements of the heat transport Nu. The heat transport, best collapsed using a parameter with , defines two boundaries in the phase diagram of versus Ek and elucidates properties of the geostrophic turbulence regime of rotating thermal convection. We find with from direct measurement and inferred from scaling arguments.
American Physical Society