Effects of bottom topography on the spin-up in a cylinder

Abstract

Motivated by better understanding the long-standing issue of the role of topography on the transport of angular momentum in rapidly rotating fluids, we conducted spin-up experiments in a straight cylinder with a regular pavement of rectangular blocks at the bottom. We perform particle image velocimetry measurements to monitor the decay of the initial differential motion generated by the sudden increase of the container rotation rate. We observe that the re-synchronization time, the so-called spin-up time, is shorter in the presence of topography with a minimum at a particular length scale of the topography pattern. We show evidence of energy transport by inertial waves as well as non-linear mechanisms leading to a scaling of the spin-up time significantly different from the classical E−1/2 in the absence of topography.