Astrodynamics & Space Missions

October 7, 2020

Astrodynamics & Space Missions Colloquium

You are kindly invited to attend the following Master Thesis Presentation

Student : Jeffrey Nederend

Date/ time : 23 October 2020 at 10:00

Location : Meeting room 1 (For committee members).

Skype link: https://join.skype.com/j6F43DJ3kcW0

Title : Rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection in uniform and non-uniform spherical shells

Abstract

Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbours a global subsurface ocean beneath its icy crust. Tidal dissipation
within the moon’s core generates a substantial amount of heat which leads to ocean convection.
Observations of the moon indicate ocean thickness variations of up to 20 km from equator to pole and
heterogeneous heat generation within the core likely results in latitude-dependent temperature
gradients. The effects of meridional thickness variations and heterogeneous temperature gradients on
rotating thermal convection have not been simulated in previous studies. Here we simulate a non-
uniform spherical shell employing a degree-2 zonal thickness profile. Using direct numerical
simulations, we analysed various properties associated with heat transfer behaviour for flows in a
uniform and non- uniform spherical shell domain driven by thermal convection with the Rayleigh
number in the range 1.6×105 ≤ Ra ≤ 5.0×106 and constant Ekman number of Ek = 3×10-4 and
Prandtl number of Pr = 1. Our results demonstrate that different regimes of convection exist, which
depend on the relative influence of rotation. With increasing thermal forcing, convection moves from
being restricted to equatorial regions to filling the whole fluid domain. Global scaling behaviour for
both domains was found to be consistent with literature, although weaker polar convection in non-
uniform shells caused a decrease in heat transfer efficiency and thus a diminished heat transfer
scaling behaviour. The diminishing transport of heat at the poles in the non-uniform shell deviates
from the predicted heat flux profile at Enceladus, suggesting that stronger thermal heterogeneities are
required to enhance polar heat transfer.

Ir. M. Rovira-Navarro
Dr. T. Pestana
Dr. ir. W. van der Wal