Direct Numerical Simulations of Turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard Convection in Wide Cylinders

Abstract

It is well-known that heat transport in Rayleigh-Bénard convection, which can be expressed by the Nusselt number Nu, scales with the Rayleigh number Ra [1]–[2]. Chavanne et al compared numerous experimental results [3] and showed that the obtained scaling law Nu vs. Ra depends on the aspect ratio a = H/R (where R denotes the radius and H — the height of the cylinder) and the Prandtl number Pr = v/k. While most experiments were conducted in a cylindrical confinement for practical reasons, the majority of the so far performed numerical simulations were conducted for planar configurations