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The role of hard turbulent thermal convection in the Earth's early thermal evolutionIn the last several years great progress was made in the study of a new transition in thermal convection, called hard turbulence. Initial experiments were conducted with helium gas, then with water. It was shown that for base-heated Newtonian convection a transition occurred at Rayleigh numbers between 10(exp 7) and 10(exp 8). This transition is characterized by the appearance of disconnected plume structures in contrast to continuous plumes with mushroom-shaped tops found for lower Rayleigh numbers. This new hydrodynamic transition is expected to play an important role in reshaping our concepts of mantle convection in the early stages of planetary evolution. We have conducted two-dimensional calculations for large and small aspect-ratio configuration to see whether such a transition would take place for infinite Prandtl number fluids.
Document ID
19920019350
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Hansen, Ulli
(Cologne Univ. (Germany F.R.)., United States)
Yuen, David A.
(Minnesota Univ. Minneapolis., United States)
Zhao, Wuling
(Minnesota Univ. Minneapolis., United States)
Malevsky, Andrei V.
(Minnesota Univ. Minneapolis., United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1992
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Inst., Workshop on the Physics and Chemistry of Magma Oceans from 1 Bar to 4 Mbar
Subject Category
Geophysics
Accession Number
92N28593
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
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