The effect of Prandtl number on turbulent sheared thermal convection

Prandtl and Rayleigh number dependence of the Reynolds number in turbulent thermal convection.

The Prandtl and Rayleigh number dependences of the Reynolds number in turbulent thermal convection following from the unifying theory by Grossmann and Lohse [J. Fluid Mech. 407, 27 (2000); Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3316 (2001)] are presented and compared with various recent experimental findings. This dependence Re(Ra,Pr) is more complicated than a simple global power law. For Pr=5.5 and 10(8)<Ra<10...

The Anisotropy of Low Prandtl Number Turbulent Convection

A model for homogeneous anisotropic incompressible turbulence is proposed. The model generalizes the GISS model of homogeneous isotropic turbulence; the generalization involves the solution of the GISS equations along a set of integration paths in wavenumber (k-) space. In order to make the problem tractable, these integration paths (“cascade lines”) must be chosen in such a way that the behavi...

Effects of vertical boundaries on infinite Prandtl number thermal convection

The physics of thermomechanical coupling of the continental lithosphere and its surrounding mantle is studied using a simple hydrodynamic model in which a fluid is heated from below and is bounded by rigid side walls. Rayleigh numbers up to 10 are considered. A series of finite-element stability analyses is employed to characterize systematically the nature of convective instability in such a s...

Turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection for a Prandtl number of 0.67

For the Rayleigh-number range 10 Ra 10 we report measurements of the Nusselt number Nu and of properties of the large-scale circulation (LSC) for cylindrical samples of helium gas (Prandtl number Pr=0.674) that have aspect ratio Γ ≡D/L=0.50 (D and L are the diameter and the height respectively) and are heated from below. The results for Nu are consistent with recent direct numerical simulations...

Effect of the Prandtl number on a stratified turbulent wake