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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 044502 (2009) [4 pages]

Prandtl-, Rayleigh-, and Rossby-Number Dependence of Heat Transport in Turbulent Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard Convection

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Jin-Qiang Zhong1, Richard J. A. M. Stevens2, Herman J. H. Clercx3,4, Roberto Verzicco5, Detlef Lohse2, and Guenter Ahlers1
1Department of Physics and iQCD, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
2Department of Science and Technology and J.M. Burgers Center for Fluid Dynamics, University of Twente, P.O Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
3Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
4Department of Physics and J.M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
5Department of Mechanical Engineering, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Roma, Italy

Received 29 October 2008; published 29 January 2009

Experimental and numerical data for the heat transfer as a function of the Rayleigh, Prandtl, and Rossby numbers in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection are presented. For relatively small Ra≈108 and large Pr modest rotation can enhance the heat transfer by up to 30%. At larger Ra there is less heat-transfer enhancement, and at small Pr≲0.7 there is no heat-transfer enhancement at all. We suggest that the small-Pr behavior is due to the breakdown of the heat-transfer-enhancing Ekman pumping because of larger thermal diffusion.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.044502
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.044502
PACS:
47.27.te, 47.20.Bp, 47.27.ek, 47.32.Ef
 
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