Acoustic modes of rapidly rotating ellipsoids subject to centrifugal gravity

Abstract

The acoustic modes of a rotating fluid-filled cavity can be used to determine the effective rotation rate of a fluid (since the resonant frequencies are modified by the flows). To be accurate, this method requires a prior knowledge of the acoustic modes in rotating fluids. Contrary to the Coriolis force, centrifugal gravity has received much less attention in the experimental context. Motivated by on-going experiments in rotating ellipsoids, we study how global rotation and buoyancy modify the acoustic modes of fluid-filled ellipsoids in isothermal (or isentropic) hydrostatic equilibrium. We go beyond the standard acoustic equation, which neglects solid-body rotation and gravity, by deriving an exact wave equation for the acoustic velocity. We then solve the wave problem using a polynomial spectral method in ellipsoids, which is compared with finite-element solutions of the primitive fluid-dynamic equations. We show that the centrifugal acceleration has measurable effects on the acoustic frequencies when $M_{\Omega }\gtrsim 0.3$, where $M_{\Omega }$ is the rotational Mach number defined as the ratio of the sonic and rotational time scales. Such a regime can be reached with experiments rotating at a few tens of Hz, by replacing air with a highly compressible gas (e.g. SF${}_6$ or C${}_4$F${}_8$).

arXiv comment12 pages, 7 figures. Published online 27 August 2021 in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Precession-driven flows in stress-free ellipsoids