Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Turbulent Shear Flow in a Rapidly Rotating Spherical Annulus

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Zimmerman_umd_0117E_11747.pdf (6.969Mb)
    No. of downloads: 717

    Date
    2010
    Author
    Zimmerman, Daniel
    Advisor
    Lathrop, Daniel P
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    This dissertation presents experimental measurements of torque, wall shear stress, pressure, and velocity in the boundary-driven turbulent flow of water between concentric, independently rotating spheres, commonly known as spherical Couette flow. The spheres' radius ratio is 0.35, geometrically similar to that of Earth's core. The measurements are performed at unprecedented Reynolds number for this geometry, as high as fifty-six million. The role of rapid overall rotation on the turbulence is investigated. A number of different turbulent flow states are possible, selected by the Rossby number, a dimensionless measure of the differential rotation. In certain ranges of the Rossby number near state borders, bistable co-existence of states is possible. In these ranges the flow undergoes intermittent transitions between neighboring states. At fixed Rossby number, the flow properties vary with Reynolds number in a way similar to that of other turbulent flows. At most parameters investigated, the large scales of the turbulent flow are characterized by system-wide spatial and temporal correlations that co-exist with intense broadband velocity fluctuations. Some of these wave-like motions are identifiable as inertial modes. All waves are consistent with slowly drifting large scale patterns of vorticity, which include Rossby waves and inertial modes as a subset. The observed waves are generally very energetic, and imply significant inhomogeneity in the turbulent flow. Increasing rapidity of rotation as the Ekman number is lowered intensifies those waves identified as inertial modes with respect to other velocity fluctuations. The turbulent scaling of the torque on inner sphere is a focus of this dissertation. The Rossby-number dependence of the torque is complicated. We normalize the torque at a given Reynolds number in the rotating states by that when the outer sphere is stationary. We find that this normalized quantity can be considered a Rossby-dependent friction factor that expresses the effect of the self-organized flow geometry on the turbulent drag. We predict that this Rossby-dependence will change considerably in different physical geometries, but should be an important quantity in expressing the parameter dependence of other rapidly rotating shear flows.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/11184
    Collections
    • Physics Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility