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Measured three-dimensional flow structure in turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a slender cylindrical cell of aspect ratio 1/10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2025

Hao Zheng ,
Xin Chen Open the ORCID record for Xin Chen [Opens in a new window] ,
Yi-Bao Zhang Open the ORCID record for Yi-Bao Zhang [Opens in a new window]  and
Heng-Dong Xi Open the ORCID record for Heng-Dong Xi [Opens in a new window]
Hao Zheng
Affiliation:
Institute of Extreme Mechanics, School of Aeronautics, National Key Laboratory of Aircraft Configuration Design and Key Laboratory for Extreme Mechanics of Aircraft of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, PR China
Xin Chen*
Affiliation:
Institute of Extreme Mechanics, School of Aeronautics, National Key Laboratory of Aircraft Configuration Design and Key Laboratory for Extreme Mechanics of Aircraft of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, PR China
Yi-Bao Zhang
Affiliation:
Institute of Extreme Mechanics, School of Aeronautics, National Key Laboratory of Aircraft Configuration Design and Key Laboratory for Extreme Mechanics of Aircraft of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, PR China New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Center for Combustion Energy, Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China
Heng-Dong Xi*
Affiliation:
Institute of Extreme Mechanics, School of Aeronautics, National Key Laboratory of Aircraft Configuration Design and Key Laboratory for Extreme Mechanics of Aircraft of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, PR China
*
Corresponding authors: Heng-Dong Xi, [email protected]; Xin Chen, [email protected]
Corresponding authors: Heng-Dong Xi, [email protected]; Xin Chen, [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent experiments and simulations have sparked growing interest in the study of Rayleigh–Bénard convection in very slender cells. One pivotal inquiry arising from this interest is the elucidation of the flow structure within these very slender cells. Here we employ tomographic particle image velocimetry, for the first time, to capture experimentally the full-field three-dimensional and three-component velocity field in a very slender cylindrical cell with aspect ratio $\Gamma =1/10$. The experiments cover a Rayleigh number range $5.0 \times 10^8 \leqslant Ra \leqslant 5.0 \times 10^9$ and Prandtl number 5.7. Our experiments reveal that the flow structure in the $\Gamma =1/10$ cell is neither in the multiple-roll form nor in the simple helical form; instead, the ascending and descending flows can intersect and cross each other, resulting in the crossing events. These crossing events separate the flow into segments; within each segment, the ascending and descending flows ascend or descend side by side vertically or in the twisting manner, and the twisting is not unidirectional, while the segments near the boundary can also be in the form of a donut like structure. By applying the mode decomposition analyses to the measured three-dimensional velocity fields, we identified the crossing events as well as the twisting events for each instantaneous flow field. Statistical analysis of the modes reveals that as $Ra$ increases, the average length of the segments becomes smaller, and the average number of segments increases from 2.5 to 3.9 in the $Ra$ range of our experiments.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulent convection
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 1007 , 25 March 2025 , A75
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Copyright
© Heng-Dong Xi, 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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