Turbulent convection of liquid sodium in an inclined cylinder of unit aspect ratio

Turbulent convection of liquid sodium (Prandtl number Pr = 0.0093) in a cylinder of unit aspect ratio, heated at one end face and cooled at the other, is studied numerically. The flow regimes with inclination angles β = 0, 20, 40, 70° with respect to the vertical are considered. The Rayleigh number is 1.5∙107. Three-dimensional nonstationary simulations allow one to get instant and average characteristics of the process and to study temperature pulsation fields. A mathematical model is based on the Boussinesq equations for thermogravitational convection with use of the LES (large-eddy simulations) approach for small-scale turbulence modeling. Simulations were carried out with a non-uniform numerical grid consisting of 2.9·106 nodes. It is shown that the flow structure strongly depends on β. The large-scale circulation (LSC) exists in the cylinder at any β. Under moderate inclination (β = 20°), the strong oscillations of the LSC orientation angle with dominant frequency are observed...