Numerical simulation of cooling‐induced convective currents on a littoral slope

Abstract

Abstract 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.