Spiral Thermal Plumes in Water under Conventional Heating: Numerical Results on the Effect of Rotation

Abstract

In this paper, we study numerically the effect of rotation within a sample of water in a cylindrical container subject to rotation which is heated with a constant temperature at the bottom and lateral wall. We analyze the temporal behavior of temperature and flow velocity of the solvent. The thermal plumes developed at lower levels, already observed in the case without rotation, begin to spiral spreading outwards by the effect of rotation, increasing the azimuthal velocity of the fluid. No significant increases in the radial and vertical velocity components are observed which do not favor the mixture of hotter and colder flows in the sample and a faster heating of the solvent. In the rotation range studied, the state loses the axisymmetry and becomes fully 3D earlier in time as the rotation rate increases. To perform simulations, we use a 3D temporal model that couples momentum and heat equations and is based on spectral element methods.

Keywords

• themal convection
• spiral plumes
• rotation
• spectral methods