Richard J.A.M. Stevens

Professor at the University of Twente

Wind energy · Turbulence · Environmental flows

Publication 77 · Thermal convection

Heat transport enhancement in confined Rayleigh-Bénard convection feels the shape of the container

R. Hartmann, K.L. Chong, R.J.A.M. Stevens, R. Verzicco, D. Lohse, Europhys. Lett. 135, 24004 (2021).

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Main finding

Container shape changes the heat-transport enhancement and coherent flow organization produced by confinement in the simulated convection. The associated scaling and corner-flow interpretation remain conditional.

Three confinement geometries above their heat-transport enhancement curves against aspect ratio
How to read the figure. (a-c) Sketches of the box, square and cylindrical cells. (d-f) The corresponding heat transport, normalised by its unconfined value, against inverse aspect ratio at several Rayleigh numbers. The position and height of the enhancement peak differ between the three container shapes. Open the full-resolution figure. Figure 1. R. Hartmann et al. (2021). No separate licence is stated here; consult the original publication and credited source before reuse.

Why this matters

Container shape changes how plumes connect the plates, shifting the confinement-enhancement curve and coherent flow organization.

Research context

A Prandtl–Blasius sidewall-layer argument gives an approximate quarter-power scaling for the optimal confinement. Square-box data are broadly consistent, whereas rectangular-box data follow a different exponent and require geometry-dependent prefactors.

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