Low-Prandtl-number effects on global and local statistics in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Abstract

We present global and local statistical properties of turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) convection at low Prandtl numbers in this work. A series of high resolution two-dimensional (2D) direct numerical simulations are carried out in a square box for the Prandtl number ranges 0.005 ≤ P r ≤ 0.07 and 0.01 ≤ P r ≤ 0.15 at Rayleigh numbers R a = 10 7 and R a = 10 8, respectively. The global heat and momentum transport expressed as Nusselt number Nu and Reynolds number Re are found to scale as N u ∼ P r 0.14 and R e ∼ P r - 0.82 for R a = 10 7, and N u ∼ P r 0.11 R e ∼ P r - 0.93 for R a = 10 8. The local velocity fluctuation at the cell center shows larger amplitudes at lowered Pr, indicating a stronger turbulence in the bulk. The magnitudes of kinetic and thermal energy dissipation rates in the bulk also increase with the decreasing of Pr, due to the intensified velocity gradient and larger thermal diffusivity, respectively. In the cell central region, probability density functions (PDFs) of velocity show a bimodal distribution, and it approaches the Gaussian distribution at higher Pr, while the PDFs of temperature display a stretched exponential shape with intermittent behavior. The kinetic energy spectra further reveal that the velocity cascade follows the Bolgiano-Obukhov scaling in the bulk of the convective flow.