9 research outputs found
Competition between Spiral-Defect Chaos and Rolls in Rayleigh-Benard Convection
We present experimental results for pattern formation in Rayleigh-Benard
convection of a fluid with a Prandtl number, Pr~ 4. We find that the
spiral-defect-chaos (SDC) attractor which exists for Pr~1 has become unstable.
Gradually increasing the temperature difference from below to well above its
critical value no longer leads to SDC. A sudden jump of temperature difference
from below to above onset causes convection to grow from thermal fluctuations
and does yield SDC. However, the SDC is a transient; it coarsens and forms a
single cell-filling spiral which then drifts toward the cell wall and
disappears.Comment: 9 pages(RevTeX), 5 jpg figures, To appear as Rapid Communication in
PR
Square patterns in Rayleigh-Benard convection with rotation about a vertical axis
We present experimental results for Rayleigh-Benard convection with rotation
about a vertical axis at dimensionless rotation rates in the range 0 to 250 and
upto 20% above the onset. Critical Rayleigh numbers and wavenumbers agree with
predictions of linear stability analysis. For rotation rates greater than 70
and close to onset, the patterns are cellular with local four-fold coordination
and differ from the theoretically expected Kuppers-Lortz unstable state. Stable
as well as intermittent defect-free square lattices exist over certain
parameter ranges. Over other ranges defects dynamically disrupt the lattice but
cellular flow and local four-fold coordination is maintained.Comment: ReVTeX, 4 pages, 7 eps figures include