4 research outputs found
Koopman analysis of the long-term evolution in a turbulent convection cell
We analyse the long-time evolution of the three-dimensional flow in a closed
cubic turbulent Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection cell via a Koopman eigenfunction
analysis. A data-driven basis derived from diffusion kernels known in machine
learning is employed here to represent a regularized generator of the unitary
Koopman group in the sense of a Galerkin approximation. The resulting Koopman
eigenfunctions can be grouped into subsets in accordance with the discrete
symmetries in a cubic box. In particular, a projection of the velocity field
onto the first group of eigenfunctions reveals the four stable large-scale
circulation (LSC) states in the convection cell. We recapture the preferential
circulation rolls in diagonal corners and the short-term switching through roll
states parallel to the side faces which have also been seen in other
simulations and experiments. The diagonal macroscopic flow states can last as
long as a thousand convective free-fall time units. In addition, we find that
specific pairs of Koopman eigenfunctions in the secondary subset obey enhanced
oscillatory fluctuations for particular stable diagonal states of the LSC. The
corresponding velocity field structures, such as corner vortices and swirls in
the midplane, are also discussed via spatiotemporal reconstructions.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, article in press at Journal of Fluid Mechanic
Role of critical points of the skin friction field in formation of plumes in thermal convection
The dynamics in the thin boundary layers of temperature and velocity is the
key to a deeper understanding of turbulent transport of heat and momentum in
thermal convection. The velocity gradient at the hot and cold plates of a
Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection cell forms the two-dimensional skin friction
field and is related to the formation of thermal plumes in the respective
boundary layers. Our analysis is based on a direct numerical simulation of
Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection in a closed cylindrical cell of aspect ratio
and focused on the critical points of the skin friction field. We
identify triplets of critical points, which are composed of two unstable nodes
and a saddle between them, as the characteristic building block of the skin
friction field. Isolated triplets as well as networks of triplets are detected.
The majority of the ridges of line-like thermal plumes coincide with the
unstable manifolds of the saddles. From a dynamical Lagrangian perspective,
thermal plumes are formed together with an attractive hyperbolic Lagrangian
Coherent Structure of the skin friction field. We also discuss the differences
from the skin friction field in turbulent channel flows from the perspective of
the Poincar\'{e}-Hopf index theorem for two-dimensional vector fields