Experimental evidence for jump rope vortices in turbulent convective superstructures
Abstract
We investigate turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a convection cell with square cross section and aspect ratio Γ = width / height = 25 filled with the liquid metal alloy GaInSn at Prandtl number P r ≈ 0.03 . A dense array of thermocouples and ultrasonic Doppler velocimetry is employed to measure the temperature distributions at the top of the convection cell and horizontal velocity profiles, respectively, in the Rayleigh number range 3.27 × 10 4 ≲ Ra ≲ 2.17 × 10 5 . Conspicuous thermal structures manifest themselves in the two-dimensional temperature fields and closely resemble the turbulent superstructures predicted in numerical simulations. The velocity data reveal flow features that indicate the presence of “jump rope vortices” (JRV). This can be seen in characteristic oscillations that permeate the entire 3D flow structure. The measured frequencies, f 0 correspond very well with the empirical scaling f 0 ∝ Ra 0.419 . The results thus provide experimental evidence that the jump-rope vortex, which has previously been identified as the striking dynamical feature of large-scale convection (LSC) in geometries with moderate aspect ratios ( 1.4 ≤ Γ ≤ 5 ), also persists as a robust, three-dimensional mode embedded within turbulent convective superstructures at very large aspect ratios.
Related
- Experimental and Numerical Study on Suppression of a Turbulent Fire Via Water Mist
- AI-Accelerated Gyrokinetic Predictions of Turbulent Transport for Stellarator Design Optimization and Experimental Planning
- Experimental assessment of a scalar-dissipation-rate sub-grid-scale closure for Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent premixed flames
- Evidence for Hierarchical Turbulent Scaling in Nearby Star-Forming Galaxies
- No evidence of vorticity production from irrotational turbulent gravitational collapse yet
BibTeX
@article{kim2026experimental,
title = {{Experimental evidence for jump rope vortices in turbulent convective superstructures}},
author = {Nayoung Kim and Felix Schindler and Sylvie Su and Sven Eckert and Tobias Vogt},
journal = {Physical Review Fluids},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1103/653m-gc8d},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05774366v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Experimental evidence for jump rope vortices in turbulent convective superstructures
AU - Nayoung Kim
AU - Felix Schindler
AU - Sylvie Su
AU - Sven Eckert
AU - Tobias Vogt
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/30
JO - Physical Review Fluids
DO - 10.1103/653m-gc8d
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05774366v1
AB - We investigate turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a convection cell with square cross section and aspect ratio Γ = width / height = 25 filled with the liquid metal alloy GaInSn at Prandtl number P r ≈ 0.03 . A dense array of thermocouples and ultrasonic Doppler velocimetry is employed to measure the temperature distributions at the top of the convection cell and horizontal velocity profiles, respectively, in the Rayleigh number range 3.27 × 10 4 ≲ Ra ≲ 2.17 × 10 5 . Conspicuous thermal structures manifest themselves in the two-dimensional temperature fields and closely resemble the turbulent superstructures predicted in numerical simulations. The velocity data reveal flow features that indicate the presence of “jump rope vortices” (JRV). This can be seen in characteristic oscillations that permeate the entire 3D flow structure. The measured frequencies, f 0 correspond very well with the empirical scaling f 0 ∝ Ra 0.419 . The results thus provide experimental evidence that the jump-rope vortex, which has previously been identified as the striking dynamical feature of large-scale convection (LSC) in geometries with moderate aspect ratios ( 1.4 ≤ Γ ≤ 5 ), also persists as a robust, three-dimensional mode embedded within turbulent convective superstructures at very large aspect ratios.
SN - 2469-990X
ER -