Vortex patterns in rapidly rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection under spatial periodic forcing

Pattern-forming with externally imposed symmetry is ubiquitous in nature but little studied. We present experimental studies of pattern formation and selection by spatial periodic forcing in rapidly rotating convection. When periodic topographic structures are constructed on the heated boundary, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of fluid mechanics Vol. 950
Main Authors Ding, Shan-Shan, Zhang, Hong-Lin, Chen, Dong-Tian, Zhong, Jin-Qiang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 10.11.2022
Subjects
Convection
JFM Rapids
Lattices
Pattern formation
Periodicity
Phase diagrams
Rayleigh number
Rayleigh-Benard convection
Rotation
Symmetry
Topography
Velocity distribution
Vortices
rotating flows
pattern formation
Bénard convection
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Summary:Pattern-forming with externally imposed symmetry is ubiquitous in nature but little studied. We present experimental studies of pattern formation and selection by spatial periodic forcing in rapidly rotating convection. When periodic topographic structures are constructed on the heated boundary, they modulate the local temperature and velocity fields. Symmetric convection patterns in the form of regular vortex lattices are observed near the onset of convection, when the periodicity of the external forcing is set close to the intrinsic vortex spacing. We show that the new patterns arise as a dynamical process of imperfect bifurcation which is well described by a Ginzburg–Landau-like model. We explore the phase diagram of buoyancy strength and periodicity of external forcing to find the optimal experimental settings for which the vortex patterns best match that of the external forcing.
ISSN:0022-1120
1469-7645
DOI:10.1017/jfm.2022.780