Transition in Internally Heated Convection

Natural convection induced by internal heat generation in a shallow fluid layer was investigated experimentally. Internal heat generation was realized by passing electric current through ionic liquid. Kalliroscope flakes and thermo-chromic liquid crystal were utilized to clarify a transition of the convection with respect to the Rayleigh number, $R_{\mathrm{I}}$. Visualized flow pattern at higher Rayleigh number show two types of deformed cell shape, double cell structure, which has a small cell in a large cell, and spoke like cell structure, where descending flow neat the center of a cell spread like a spoke. Visualized temperature field was converted to temperature field in order to investigate the transition quantitatively. Variation of horizontal temperature fluctuation with respect to $R_{\mathrm{I}}$ may show critical Rayleigh number for the transition.