We perform a numerical study of the heat transfer and flow structure of Rayleigh-Benard (RB) convection in (in most cases regular) porous media, which are comprised of circular, solid obstacles located on a square lattice. This study is focused on the role of porosity in the flow properties during the transition process from the traditional RB convection with (so no obstacles included) to Darcy-type porous-media convection with approaching 0. Simulations are carried out in a cell with unity aspect ratio, for Rayleigh number from to and varying porosities , at a fixed Prandtl number , and we restrict ourselves to the two-dimensional case. For fixed , the Nusselt number is found to vary non-monotonically as a function of ; namely, with decreasing , it first increases, before it decreases for approaching 0. The non-monotonic behaviour of originates from two competing effects of the porous structure on the heat transfer. On the one hand, the flow coherence is enhanced in the porous media, which is beneficial for the heat transfer. On the other hand, the convection is slowed down by the enhanced resistance due to the porous structure, leading to heat transfer reduction. For fixed , depending on , two different heat transfer regimes are identified, with different effective power-law behaviours of versus , namely a steep one for low when viscosity dominates, and the standard classical one for large . The scaling crossover occurs when the thermal boundary layer thickness and the pore scale are comparable. The influences of the porous structure on the temperature and velocity fluctuations, convective heat flux and energy dissipation rates are analysed, further demonstrating the competing effects of the porous structure to enhance or reduce the heat transfer.

We derive macroscopic dynamics for self-propelled particles in a fluid. The starting point is a coupled Vicsek–Stokes system. The Vicsek model describes self-propelled agents interacting through alignment. It provides a phenomenological description of hydrodynamic interactions between agents at high density. Stokes equations describe a low Reynolds number fluid. These two dynamics are coupled by the interaction between the agents and the fluid. The fluid contributes to rotating the particles through Jeffery’s equation. Particle self-propulsion induces a force dipole on the fluid. After coarse-graining we obtain a coupled Self-Organised Hydrodynamics–Stokes system. We perform a linear stability analysis for this system which shows that both pullers and pushers have unstable modes. We conclude by providing extensions of the Vicsek–Stokes model including short-distance repulsion, finite particle inertia and finite Reynolds number fluid regime.

The nonlinear and non-stationary nature of Navier-Stokes equations produces fluid flows that can be noticeably different in appearance with subtle changes. In this paper we introduce a method that can analyze the intrinsic multiscale features of flow fields from a decomposition point of view, by using the Hilbert-Huang transform method on 3D fluid simulation. We show how this method can provide insights to flow styles and help modulate the fluid simulation with its internal physical information. We provide easy-toimplement algorithms that can be integrated with standard grid-based fluid simulation methods, and demonstrate how this approach can modulate the flow field and guide the simulation with different flow styles. The modulation is straightforward and relates directly to the flow¡¯s visual effect, with moderate computational overhead.

Flow reversals in two-dimensional Rayleigh-Benard convection led by non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq (NOB) effects due to large temperature differences arc studied by direct numerical simulation. Perfect gas is chosen as the working fluid and the Prandtl number is 0.71 for the reference state. 11 NOB effects are included, the flow pattern P-11 with only one dominant roll often becomes unstable by the growth of the cold corner roll, which sometimes results in cession-led flow reversals. By exploiting the vorticity transport equation, it is found that the asymmetries of buoyancy and viscous forces are responsible for the growth of the cold corner roll because both such asymmetries cause an imbalance between the corner rolls and the large-scale circulation (I.SC). The buoyancy force near the cold wall increases and decreases near the hot wall originating from the temperature-dependent isobaric thermal expansion coefficient alpha = 1/T if NOB effects are included; Moreover, the decreased dissipation due to lower viscosity is favourable for the growth of the cold corner roll, while the increased viscosity further suppresses the growth of the hot corner roll. Finally, it is found that the boundary layer near the cold wall plays an important role in the mass transport from LSC to corner rolls subject to mass conservation.

In the long-time scale, we consider the fluid dynamical limits for the kinetic equations when the fluctuation is decomposed into even and odd parts with respect to the microscopic velocity with different scalings. It is shown that when the background state is an absolute Maxwellian, the limit fluid dynamical equations are the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with viscous heating. This is different from the case when the even and odd parts of the fluctuation have the same scaling where the standard incompressible Navier-Stokes equations without viscous heating are obtained. On the other hand, when the background is a local Maxwellian, it is shown that the above even-odd decomposition leads to a non-classical fluid dynamical system without viscous heating which has been used to describe the ghost effect in the kinetic theory. In addition, the above even-odd decomposition is justified rigorously for the Boltzmann equation for the former case when the background is an absolute Maxwellian.