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Prandtl-, Rayleigh-, and Rossby-number dependence of heat transport in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Jan 30;102(4):044502. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.044502. Epub 2009 Jan 29.

Abstract

Experimental and numerical data for the heat transfer as a function of the Rayleigh, Prandtl, and Rossby numbers in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented. For relatively small Ra approximately 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 less, similar 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.