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Scaling laws and flow structures of double diffusive convection in the finger regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2016

Yantao Yang Open the ORCID record for Yantao Yang [Opens in a new window] ,
Roberto Verzicco  and
Detlef Lohse
Yantao Yang*
Affiliation:
Physics of Fluids Group, MESA $+$ Research Institute, and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Roberto Verzicco
Affiliation:
Physics of Fluids Group, MESA $+$ Research Institute, and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Via del Politecnico 1, Roma 00133, Italy
Detlef Lohse
Affiliation:
Physics of Fluids Group, MESA $+$ Research Institute, and J. M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
*
†Email address for correspondence: yantao.yang@utwente.nl
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Abstract

Direct numerical simulations are conducted for double diffusive convection (DDC) bounded by two parallel plates. The Prandtl numbers, i.e. the ratios between the viscosity and the molecular diffusivities of scalars, are similar to the values of seawater. The DDC flow is driven by an unstable salinity difference (here across the two plates) and stabilized at the same time by a temperature difference. For these conditions the flow can be in the finger regime. We develop scaling laws for three key response parameters of the system: the non-dimensional salinity flux $\mathit{Nu}_{S}$ mainly depends on the salinity Rayleigh number $\mathit{Ra}_{S}$ , which measures the strength of the salinity difference and exhibits a very weak dependence on the density ratio $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}$ , which is the ratio of the buoyancy forces induced by two scalar differences. The non-dimensional flow velocity $Re$ and the non-dimensional heat flux $\mathit{Nu}_{T}$ are dependent on both $\mathit{Ra}_{S}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}$ . However, the rescaled Reynolds number $Re\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{u}^{eff}}$ and the rescaled convective heat flux $(\mathit{Nu}_{T}-1)\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{T}^{eff}}$ depend only on $\mathit{Ra}_{S}$ . The two exponents are dependent on the fluid properties and are determined from the numerical results as $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{u}^{eff}=0.25\pm 0.02$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{T}^{eff}=0.75\pm 0.03$ . Moreover, the behaviours of $\mathit{Nu}_{S}$ and $Re\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{u}^{eff}}$ agree with the predictions of the Grossmann–Lohse theory which was originally developed for the Rayleigh–Bénard flow. The non-dimensional salt-finger width and the thickness of the velocity boundary layers, after being rescaled by $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6EC}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{u}^{eff}/2}$ , collapse and obey a similar power-law scaling relation with $\mathit{Ra}_{S}$ . When $\mathit{Ra}_{S}$ is large enough, salt fingers do not extend from one plate to the other and horizontal zonal flows emerge in the bulk region. We then show that the current scaling strategy can be successfully applied to the experimental results of a heat–copper–ion system (Hage & Tilgner, Phys. Fluids, vol. 22, 2010, 076603). The fluid has different properties and the exponent $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{u}^{eff}$ takes a different value $0.54\pm 0.10$ .

JFM classification

Convection: Convection Convection: Double diffusive convection Geophysical and Geological Flows: Geophysical and Geological Flows

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Papers
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Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 802 , 10 September 2016 , pp. 667 - 689
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© 2016 Cambridge University Press 

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