Thermal boundary layer properties in turbulent thermal convection: Effects of Prandtl number

ORAL

Abstract

We report experimental measurements of thermal boundary layer properties in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection with the Prandtl (Pr) number being varied from 11.6 to 157.4. The experiments were conducted in rectangular convection cells over the Rayleigh number \textit{Ra} range of 1e9 \textasciitilde 2e10 Both the mean temperature and its root mean square profiles were measured by a thermistor that is movable along the central vertical axis of the cell. These results are compared with the recently derived boundary layer equations by Shishkina et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 114, 2015, 114302) and by Wang et al. (Phys. Rev. Fluids, vol. 1, 2016, 082301), with a focus on the effects of Pr number.

*This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 11702128 and 91752201.

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Authors

  • Shidi Huang

    • Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology

  • XIAO-MING LI

    • Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology
    • Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, South University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China

  • Ji-Dong He

    • Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology

  • Peng Hao

    • Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology