Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-20T22:07:12.366Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thermal convection in a rotating cylindrical annulus and its mean zonal flows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2006

J. TAO  and
F. H. BUSSE
J. TAO
Affiliation:
Institute of Physics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany LTCS and Department of Mechanics and Engineering Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P.R. China
F. H. BUSSE
Affiliation:
Institute of Physics, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Thermal convection driven by centrifugal buoyancy in a rapidly rotating narrow annular channel is studied in the case of rigid cylindrical walls. The pattern of high-wavenumber thermal Rossby waves becomes increasingly modulated and finally chaotic as the Rayleigh number is increased. Retrograde as well as prograde mean zonal flows are found. The prograde mean flow dominates in fluids with large Prandtl number, while retrograde mean flows are more typical for small Prandtl numbers. Although the basic thermal Rossby waves travel in the prograde direction when the height of the annulus decreases with distance from the axis, their long-wavelength modulations often propagate in the retrograde direction.

Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 552 , 10 April 2006 , pp. 73 - 82
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)