Steady, three-dimensional, internally heated convection

Abstract

Numerical calculations have been carried out of steady, symmetric, 3D modes of convection in internally heated, infinite Prandtl number, Boussinesq fluids at a Rayleigh number of 1.4 x 10 exp 4 in a spherical shell with inner/outer radius of 0.55 and in a 3 x 3 x 1 rectangular box. Multiple patterns of convection occur in both geometries. In the Cartesian geometry, the patterns are dominated by cylindrical cold downflows and a broad hot upwelling. In the spherical geometry the patterns consist of cylindrical cold downwellings centered either at the vertices of a tetrahedron or the centers of the faces of a cube. The cold downflow cylinders are immersed in a background of upwelling within which there are cylindrical hot concentrations (plumes) and hot halos around the downflows. The forced hot upflow return plumes of internally heated spherical convection are fundamentally different from the buoyancy-driven plumes of heated from below convection.