Suppressing wall modes in confined rotating turbulent convection

In confined turbulent rotating convection, the largest vertical velocities are found near the sidewalls in the form of wave-like structures known as wall modes.

These structures persist deep into the turbulent regime, bias heat transport, and disrupt bulk flow organisation through radial jets.

Controlling or suppressing wall modes is, therefore, essential for accessing bulk dynamics free from wall-induced effects.

Here, we combine experiments and direct numerical simulations to investigate wall modes control in cylindrical cells equipped with ring-shaped sidewall barriers.

Barriers suppress vertical-velocity maxima near the sidewall and disrupt the characteristic wave-like pattern.

Simulations further show that the barriers reduce the wall-mode-induced enhancement of heat transport, shifting it towards values characteristic of laterally periodic domains.

The suppression efficiency is governed by the ratio of the barrier width to the wall-mode scale and is enhanced by the addition of a second barrier.

In the horizontal plane, radial jet ejections are attenuated, while the time-averaged flow reveals suppression of the boundary zonal flow (BZF), a ring-shaped region of positive azimuthal velocity near the sidewall, provided measurements are taken away from the immediate vicinity of the barriers.

In this region, isotherms bend toward the poorly conducting barrier, creating a local misalignment with the isobars and inducing a baroclinic flow adjacent to the barrier faces.

This effect weakens with increasing barrier conductivity or smoother geometry.

These results demonstrate that sidewall barriers provide a robust route for suppressing wall modes signatures in experimental turbulent rotating convection, while locally inducing secondary baroclinic flows near the barriers.

Their use enables access to extreme rotating-convection regimes with reduced sidewall influence.