Heat transport in highly viscous fluids

What is it about?

Fluids transport heat upwards when heated from below. As the rate of heating is increased, the motion of the fluid becomes turbulent, chaotic, and unpredictable. Heating from below is a well-studied model, however in nature we come across a wide range of phenomena involving fluids moving and transporting heat by convection. Instead of heating from below, environments like the interiors of planets, and in particular the Mantle of the Earth are heated from within. The presence of radioactive isotopes in the Mantle generates over 70% of the energy within the planet, while the remaining 30% is heat leftover from planetary formation. Our work looks to better understand heat transport of very viscous fluids when heat is put into the system internally as opposed to from the boundaries. The Mantle is an example of a highly viscous fluid, unlike air or water, the Mantle moves as a fluid but does so on larger time scales. This research sheds light on the turbulent motion within planets by analysing the equations that describe their dynamics.

Featured Image

Photo by Lucas Kapla on Unsplash

Photo by Lucas Kapla on Unsplash