NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF COOLING-INDUCED CONVECTIVE CURRENTS ON A LITTORAL SLOPE

The transient development of cooling-induced flow in a triangular domain filled with water is studied by means of numerical simulation as a model for flow developing in the littoral region of lakes or coasts. The domain is fitted in polar co-ordinates; solutions are obtained for different values of the independent parameters of the model, which are the Rayleigh number (Ra), the Prandtl number (Pr) and the slope of the domain (S). Within the ranges examined, as Ra is increased, different regimes of the developing flow are observed; these are found qualitatively to be insignificantly influenced by changes in S, whereas the flow is found to be quantitatively insensitive to Pr for high enough values of Pr. Several interesting features of the flow are depicted and integral values useful in the analysis of flow in lakes are extracted.