Jump rope vortex flow in liquid metal Rayleigh-B\'enard convection in a cuboid container of aspect ratio five

Abstract

We study the topology and the temporal dynamics of turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in a liquid metal with a Prandtl number of 0.03 located inside a box with a square base area and an aspect ratio of five. Experiments and numerical simulations are focused on the moderate Rayleigh number range, where a new cellular flow regime has been reported by a previous study (Akashi et al., Phys. Rev. Fluids, vol.4, 2019, 033501). This flow structure shows symmetries with respect to the vertical planes crossing at the center of the container. The dynamic behaviour is dominated by strong three-dimensional oscillations with a period length that corresponds to the turnover time. Our analysis reveals that the flow structure in the aspect ratio five box corresponds in key features to the jump rope vortex structure, which has recently been discovered in an aspect ratio two cylinder (Vogt et al., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, vol.115, 2018, 12674-12679). While in the cylinder a single jump rope vortex occurs, the coexistence of four recirculating swirls is detected in this study. %Their cycling movement is restrained by the limited height of the fluid layer in the aspect ratio five box. Their approach to the lid or the bottom of the convection box causes a temporal deceleration of both the horizontal velocity at the respective boundary and the vertical velocity in the bulk, which in turn is reflected in Nusselt number oscillations. The cellular flow regime shows remarkable similarities to properties commonly attributed to turbulent superstructures