Scale by scale analysis of magnetoconvection with uniform wall-normal and wall-parallel magnetic fields at low magnetic Reynolds number

TL;DR

This study investigates how uniform magnetic fields influence magnetoconvection at low magnetic Reynolds number, revealing structural and energetic modifications across scales through direct numerical simulations and energy budget analysis.

Contribution

It provides a detailed interpretation of magnetic field effects on turbulence structures and energy transfer mechanisms in magnetoconvective flows, extending analysis to multiple scales.

Findings

Magnetic fields thin thermal plumes via Lorentz damping.

Joule dissipation redistributes kinetic energy among velocity components.

Lorentz force acts as an isotropic energy sink, suppressing small-scale turbulence.

Abstract

Rayleigh-B\'enard convection under an imposed inductionless magnetic field is analysed statistically from the perspective of single-point and multi-scale energy budgets. The data is obtained from direct numerical simulations with a Rayleigh number of $10^6$, a Prandtl number of $1$ and Hartmann numbers of $0$, $20$, $40$ and $80$. Wall-parallel and wall-normal magnetic fields are considered as two separate cases. The initial analysis focuses qualitatively on the influence of the magnetic field upon the coherent structures. A central contribution of this work is the interpretation of these structural modifications through magnetohydrodynamically modified turbulent kinetic energy budgets. For example, in the wall-normal case, the thinning of the thermal plumes can be attributed to the damping of the pressure-diffusion mechanisms due to the Lorentz dissipation. In the wall-parallel configuration, Joule dissipation induces a pressure-strain redistribution mechanism that preferentially transfers kinetic energy from the wall-normal velocity component to the field-perpendicular, wall-parallel velocity component but less so to the field-parallel velocity component. This description is then extended to scale-space by considering budgets relating second- and third-order structure functions. Here, the anisotropy is accounted for by analysing directional structure functions. Despite the anisotropy, the Lorentz force appears as an isotropic sink damping intermediate and large scales of motion. The result of this is a lack of transfer between scales of motion and hence a flow with suppressed small-scale turbulence. These results establish a link between qualitative observations and long-term energy balances, providing new insight into magnetoconvective turbulence and informing future modelling and theoretical approaches to such flows.