Abstract
We examine here the usefulness of two-point moment closures as a potential tool in computing turbulent convection, considering the eventual application to stellar convection. Confining our attention to the Boussinesq limit, we first present a formal discussion of how such procedures are constructed, and then discuss—briefly—how the complex two-point formalism may be used as the basis for much simpler single-point closures of the sort used in engineering applications. Noting that the underlying assumption of the closure is a form of randomness or near Gaussianity, we discuss examples of systems related to convection, and the extent to which this assumption is validated for these systems. We examine three potential problems for such application drawn from numerical simulations and experiments: (1) counter-gradient transport, (2) the apparent failure of numerical simulations to adhere to closure scaling at low Prandtl numbers, and (3) the appearance of large-scale structures in large Prandtl number convection and simple one-dimensional models.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation
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Herring, J.R. (1987). Moment Closure for Thermal Convection: A Viable Approach?. In: Durney, B.R., Sofia, S. (eds) The Internal Solar Angular Velocity. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 137. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3903-5_29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3903-5_29
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