NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THERMAL CONVECTION IN A FLUID WITH THE INFINITE PRANDTL NUMBER AND ITS APPLICATION TO A GLASS MANUFACTURING PROBLEM

摘要

Thermal convection phenomena of fluids with the finite prandtl number are studied via numerical simulations. These phenomena are governed by various physical mechanisms in a glass melting furnace that affect the quality of glass. As an extension of the numerical model for thermal convection phenomena with the infinite Prandtl number, we present an effective finite element scheme that is called a stabilized method and enables us to carry out stable computation even for the cases of high Rayleigh numbers. By means of this scheme, transient growth of thermal convection in a top cooled rectangulare domain is studied. This problem is regarded as model of cooling process in a glass melting furnace. The computational results reveal the mechanism of generating debasement of glass quality in the cooling process. Applying the results of the simulations ,we present a new cooling method that enables us to shorten a residence time that is necessary for cooling without debasement of glass quality.