Prandtl and Rayleigh number dependence of the Reynolds number in turbulent thermal convection

Siegfried Grossmann and Detlef Lohse
Phys. Rev. E 66, 016305 – Published 22 July 2002
PDFExport Citation

Abstract

The Prandtl and Rayleigh number dependences of the Reynolds number in turbulent thermal convection following from the unifying theory by Grossmann and Lohse [J. Fluid Mech. 407, 27 (2000); Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3316 (2001)] are presented and compared with various recent experimental findings. This dependence Re(Ra,Pr) is more complicated than a simple global power law. For Pr=5.5 and 108<Ra<1010 the effective or local power law exponent of Re as a function of Ra is definitely less than 0.50, namely, ReRa0.45, in agreement with Qiu and Tong’s experimental findings [Phys. Rev. E 64, 036304 (2001)]. We also calculated the kinetic boundary layer width. Both in magnitude and in Ra scaling it is consistent with the data.

  • Received 5 March 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.66.016305

©2002 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Siegfried Grossmann1,* and Detlef Lohse2,†

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Marburg, Renthof 6, D-35032 Marburg, Germany
  • 2Department of Applied Physics, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands

  • *Email address: grossmann@physik.uni-marburg.de
  • Email address: lohse@tn.utwente.nl

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 66, Iss. 1 — July 2002

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options
Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review E

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×