Effects of strongly temperature-dependent viscosity on time-dependent, three-dimensional models of mantle convection

Details Effects of strongly temperature-dependent viscosity on time-dependent, three-dimensional models of mantle convection Effects of strongly temperature-dependent viscosity on time-dependent, three-dimensional models of mantle convection

Oct 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993georl..20.2187t&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276), vol. 20, no. 20, p. 2187-2190

Physics

82

Earth Core, Earth Mantle, Fluid Flow, Free Convection, Geophysical Fluids, Mathematical Models, Temperature Dependence, Temperature Effects, Three Dimensional Models, Time Dependence, Viscosity, Aspect Ratio, Boundary Conditions, Boundary Layer Flow, Cartesian Coordinates, Computerized Simulation, Flow Distribution, Rayleigh Number

Scientific paper

Numerical simulations of thermal convection in a wide (8x8x1) Cartesian box heated from below with temperature-dependent viscosity contrasts of 1000, and Rayleigh number 10(exp 5) show that boundary conditions and aspect ratio have an enormous effect on the preferred flow pattern. With rigid upper and lower boundaries, spoke-pattern flow with small (diameter approximately 1.5) cells is obtained, consistent with laboratory experiments and previous numerical results. However, with the arguably more realistic stress-free boundaries, the flow chooses the largest possible wavelength, forming a single square cell of aspect ration 8, with one huge cylindrical downwelling surrounded by upwelling sheets. The addition of stress-dependence to the rheology weakens the stiff upper boundary layer, resulting in smaller cells, though still with upwelling sheets and downwelling plumes.

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