Simulation and Identification of Deterministic Structures in Thermal and Magnetic Convection
Large-scale vortical structures, found in many flows in nature, in laboratory or industrial equipment, have often a deterministic character. Simulation, identification, visualization, and interpretation of such structures is essential for understanding the physics of turbulence and transport processes, and for their control, but still poses a challenge especially in complex flows at high Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers. We show that such structures can be simulated by a transient Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (T-RANS) approach. Various structure-identification methods show that the captured deterministic structures resemble closely those obtained from experiments or direct numerical simulations (DNS). The potential of the T-RANS method is illustrated by examples of classical and magnetic Rayleigh-Bnard (R-B) convection in a range of Rayleigh numbers that are at present inaccessible to experiments or other simulation techniques.
identification deterministic structures magnetic convection thermal convection