Title: Boundary and interior layers in turbulent thermal convection in cylindrical containers

Authors: Olga Shishkina, Claus Wagner

Addresses: DLR – Institute for Aerodynamics and Flow Technology, Bunsenstrasse 10, 37073 Gottingen, Germany. ' DLR – Institute for Aerodynamics and Flow Technology, Bunsenstrasse 10, 37073 Gottingen, Germany

Abstract: To simulate turbulent Rayleigh-Benard Convection (RBC) in cylindrical containers a high-order finite volume method based on the Chorin ansatz was developed. Using cylindrical staggered grids with about 10⁷ nodes clustered in vicinity of the boundary, we performed simulations of turbulent RBC in wide cylindrical containers of the aspect ratios 5 and 10 for Rayleigh numbers from 10⁵ to 10⁹. The numerical method including the von Neumann stability and the adaptive mesh generation are discussed together with the simulation results. The boundary and interior layers structures and the turbulent background contribution to heat transport are investigated.

Keywords: finite volume method; high-order approximation scheme; leapfrog–Euler scheme; von Neumann stability; adaptive mesh generation; turbulence simulation; thermal convection; boundary layers; thermal plumes; interior layers; cylindrical containers; heat transfer.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCSM.2007.016541

International Journal of Computing Science and Mathematics, 2007 Vol.1 No.2/3/4, pp.360 - 373

Published online: 07 Jan 2008 *

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