Internal hydraulic control in rotating fluids—applications to oceans

Abstract

Laboratory experiments and analysis of shallow water equations in a rotating fluid show that channel flow is governed by the ratio of the width of the channel to the Rossby radius of deformation R= √[g&Delta;ρH/ρf ²]. Flows through narrow ocean openings exhibit blocking and clear evidence of hydraulic control. These imply that formulae can be derived for width, volume flux, and velocity scales of the currents. A new version of the constant potential vorticity problem is solved, and it is shown to predict volume flux within 22% of the zero potential vorticity results. Next a systematic method of predicting volume flux through ocean passages is described. Some examples are given from the Denmark Straits overflow and the flow of Antarctic Bottom Water into the western Atlantic Ocean. Two-layer flows and counter-flows with rotation in a narrow passage, the so-called lock exchange flow problem, duplicate flows at a number of important straits and openings to bays. A potential vorticity formulation is reviewed. The flows in the mouths of various bays such as Funka Bay in Hokkaido, Japan, Spencer Gulf in South Australia, and Chesapeake Bay in the United States has R < width of the mouth, and the two currents are separated by a front. The width of the front and the density difference can be predicted with good results.     

Turbulent mixing in a rotating,stratified fluid

Abstract

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the effect of rotation on turbulent mixing in a stratified fluid when the turbulence in the mixed layer is generated by an oscillating grid. Two types of experiments were carried out: one of them is concerned with the deepening of the upper mixed layer in a stable, two-fluid system, and the other deals with the interaction between a stabilizing buoyancy flux and turbulence.

In the first type of experiments, it was found that rotation suppresses entrainment at larger Rossby numbers. As the Rossby number becomes smaller (Ro 0.1), the entrainment rate increases with rotation—the onset of this phenomenon, however, was found to coincide with the appearance of coherent vortices within the mixed layer. The radiation of energy from the mixed layer to the lower non-turbulent layer was found to occur and the magnitude of the energy flux was found to be increased with the rotational frequency. It was also observed that vortices are generated, rather abruptly, in the lower layer as the mixed layer deepens.

In the second set of experiments a quasi-steady mixed layer was found to develop of which the thickness varies with rotation in a fashion that is consistent with the result of the first experiment. Also the rotation was found to delay the formation of a pycnocline.     

旋转电极法研究盐类溶解—LiCl,NaCl,KCl在水中的溶解动力学

利用旋转盘装置结合离子选择电极研究了ＬｉＣｌ、ＮａＣｌ、ＫＣｌ在２０℃～３５℃水中溶解动力学，得到了溶解动力学方程．     

南极地区的大气环流流体物理实验

通过流体物理实验，研究南极地形及冷源对大气环流的影响。正压流体实验表明，由于地形动力强迫，在南极大陆沿岸及以北地区生成气旋性涡旋带，有３个低压中心。在地形上空生成巨大的反气旋。斜压流体实验表明，东移“行星波”的波数及波形有准周期低频振荡，其振荡周期相当于地球大气系统中的２１ｄ。东移的槽在１１０°Ｅ以东逐渐发展，在１６０°Ｗ的罗斯海附近发展得最深，再往东则逐渐减弱     

Vortex–ridge interaction in a rotating fluid

The evolution of barotropic vortices interacting with a topographic ridge on a f-plane is studied by means of laboratory experiments in a rotating tank and numerical simulations. The initial condition in all experiments is a cyclonic vortex created at a certain distance from the ridge. The results are presented in two main scenarios: (a) weak interactions, which occur at early stages of the experiments, when the vortex is far from the ridge, and thus weakly experiences the influence of the topography. In these situations, the vortex slowly drifts towards the ridge with a leftward inclination due to the ascending slope of the topography. Such a behaviour is similar to the “northwestern” motion of cyclones over a weak sloping bottom. The circular shape of the monopolar vortex is preserved. (b) Strong interactions, in which the vortex core reaches the ridge and presents a more complicated evolution. The cyclone “climbs” to the top of the topography and crosses to the other side. Once the vortex experiences the opposite slope, it moves backwards trying to return to the original side of the ridge. For strong enough vortices, this process may be repeated a number of times until the vortex is dissipated by viscous effects. During these interactions the shape of the vortex is strongly deformed and several filaments are produced. In some cases the vortex is cleaved in two parts when crossing the ridge, one at each side of it and moving in opposite directions.Weak and strong interactions are numerically simulated by using a quasi-two-dimensional model. The results confirm that the vortex behaviour is governed by stretching and squeezing effects associated with changes in depth over the ridge and, at latter stages, by Ekman damping due to the solid bottom. The main results observed during strong interactions on a f-plane are also found on preliminar topographic β-plane experiments.     

Effects of anisotropic diffusion on onset of rotating magnetoconvection in plane layer; stationary modes

ABSTRACT

Turbulence in the Earth's outer core not only increases all diffusive coefficients, but it can lead to their anisotropic properties. Therefore, the model of rotating magnetoconvection in horizontal plane layer rotating about vertical axis and permeated by homogeneous horizontal magnetic field, influenced by anisotropic diffusivities, viscosity and thermal diffusivity, is advanced by considering the magnetic diffusivity as anisotropic too. The case of full anisotropy, i.e. all coefficients anisotropic, is compared with both the case possessing isotropic diffusion coefficients and the case of partial anisotropy, i.e. mixed case with isotropic and anisotropic diffusive coefficients (viscosity and thermal diffusivity anisotropic and magnetic diffusivity isotropic). The existence and preference of instabilities is sensitive to all non-dimensional parameters, as well as on anisotropic parameter, the ratio of horizontal and vertical diffusivities. Two types of anisotropy, BM (introduced by Braginsky and Meytlis) and SA (stratification anisotropy) are studied. BM as well as SA were applied by ?oltis and Brestenský to the study of the partial anisotropy; this study is extended, in this paper, to full anisotropy cases (full SA and full BM) and it is shown that the style of convection given by the onset of stationary modes is more affected by anisotropic diffusivities in BM than in SA anisotropy. The important influence of strong anisotropies in the Earth's core dynamics is stressed.     

Validity of sound-proof approaches in rapidly-rotating compressible convection: marginal stability versus turbulence

The validity of the anelastic approximation has recently been questioned in the regime of rapidly-rotating compressible convection in low Prandtl number fluids (Calkins, Julien and Marti, Proc. R. Soc. A, 2015, vol. 471, 20140689). Given the broad usage and the high computational efficiency of sound-proof approaches in this astrophysically relevant regime, this paper clarifies the conditions for a safe application. The potential of the alternative pseudo-incompressible approximation is investigated, which in contrast to the anelastic approximation is shown to never break down for predicting the point of marginal stability. Its accuracy, however, decreases close to the parameters corresponding to the failure of the anelastic approach, which is shown to occur when the sound-crossing time of the domain exceeds a rotation time scale, i.e. for rotational Mach numbers greater than one. Concerning the supercritical case, which is naturally characterised by smaller rotational Mach numbers, we find that the anelastic approximation does not show unphysical behaviour. Growth rates computed with the linearised anelastic equations converge toward the corresponding fully compressible values as the Rayleigh number increases. Likewise, our fully nonlinear turbulent simulations, produced with our fully compressible and anelastic models and carried out in a highly supercritical, rotating, compressible, low Prandtl number regime show good agreement. However, this nonlinear test example is for only a moderately low convective Rossby number of 0.14.     

旋转等离子体系统的稳定性条件

本文从完整的MHD方程出发严格推导了一个旋转等离子体系统相对于平衡态作小振动的稳定性条件。该系统具有粘性、可压缩性、有自引力。同前人的工作相比较,由于本文用能量方程代替了近似关系(如绝热关系等),所以结果更加合理并具有普遍性。在一般情况下,前人的结果可以认为是本文结果的特例。同时本文还对文献[1]的稳定性充要条件提出疑义。     

基于1．2m望远镜白适应光学系统激光信标转盘式机械快门的研究

基于激光信标发射和接收共光路系统中探测器受杂散光影响的关键问题,设计了一种新型转盘式机械快门装置,对光信号进行高频率开关控制,从而对自适应光学系统的波前探测器起到彻底保护作用。设计时,分析了瑞利信标的采样厚度以及快门开关与脉冲激光器的发射、探测器探测时间的时序控制。     

The onset of magnetoconvection at large Prandtl number in a rotating layer II. Small magnetic diffusion

Abstract

This paper develops further a convection model that has been studied several times previously as a very crude idealization of planetary core dynamics. A plane layer of electrically-conducting fluid rotates about the vertical in the presence of a magnetic field. Such a field can be created spontaneously, as in the Childress-Soward dynamo, but here it is uniform, horizontal and externally-applied. The Prandtl number of the fluid is large, but the Ekman, Elsasser and Rayleigh numbers are of unit order. In Part I of this series, it was also supposed that the ratio thermal diffusivity diffusivity/magnetic diffusivity is O(1), but here we suppose that this ratio is large. The character of the solution is changed in this limit. In the case of main interest, when the layer is confined between electrically-insulating no-slip walls, the solution is significantly different from the solution when the mathematically simpler, illustrative boundary conditions also considered in Part I are employed. As in Part I, attention is focussed on the onset of convection as the temperature difference applied across the layer is increased, and on the preferred mode, i.e., the planform and time-dependence of small amplitude convection.