Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017. / This thesis investigates in detail the structure of models of turbulent convec
tion with phenomenological closures for the eddy-viscosity. It explores the
merits of replacing the canonical Mixing Length Theory of stellar convection
with more realistic models of fluid turbulence that take into account the full
spectrum of eddy sizes. The author provides a detailed exposition of the fun
damental assumptions and the modus operandi of various approaches to the
treatment of convective energy-transfer in stars. He focuses in particular on
spectral descriptions of the convective process. The structure of several clo
sure models developed by various authors are investigated, and he identifies
and elucidates those aspects of these closures that lead to an improved descrip
tion of convective turbulence in the stellar interior. The author also develops
an implementation within the public-domain code, called Modules for Experi
ments in Stellar Astrophysics, of two of these models and reports and discusses
the results of his numerical experiments. / XL2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/23604 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Moonsamy, Sashin |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (x, 145 leaves), application/pdf |
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