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Aspect Ratio Dependence of Heat Transfer in a Cylindrical Rayleigh-Bénard Cell

  • Guenter Ahlers
  • , Eberhard Bodenschatz
  • , Robert Hartmann
  • , Xiaozhou He
  • , Detlef Lohse
  • , Philipp Reiter
  • , Richard J.A.M. Stevens
  • , Roberto Verzicco
  • , Marcel Wedi
  • , Stephan Weiss
  • , Xuan Zhang
  • , Lukas Zwirner
  • , Olga Shishkina*
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization
  • University of California at Santa Barbara
  • University of Twente
  • University of Göttingen
  • Cornell University
  • Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen
  • University of Rome Tor Vergata
  • Gran Sasso Science Institute

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

While the heat transfer and the flow dynamics in a cylindrical Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) cell are rather independent of the aspect ratio Γ (diameter/height) for large Γ, a small-Γ cell considerably stabilizes the flow and thus affects the heat transfer. Here, we first theoretically and numerically show that the critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection at given Γ follows Rac,Γ∼Rac,∞(1+CΓ-2)2, with C ≲ 1.49 for Oberbeck-Boussinesq (OB) conditions. We then show that, in a broad aspect ratio range (1/32)≤Γ≤32, the rescaling Ra→RaℓRa[Γ2/(C+Γ2)]3/2 collapses various OB numerical and almost-OB experimental heat transport data Nu(Ra,Γ). Our findings predict the Γ dependence of the onset of the ultimate regime Rau,Γ∼[Γ2/(C+Γ2)]-3/2 in the OB case. This prediction is consistent with almost-OB experimental results (which only exist for Γ=1, 1/2, and 1/3) for the transition in OB RB convection and explains why, in small-Γ cells, much larger Ra (namely, by a factor Γ-3) must be achieved to observe the ultimate regime.

Original languageEnglish
Article number084501
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume128
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 25 Feb 2022
Externally publishedYes

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