Rayleigh-Bénard

Rayleigh-Bénard Instability

These are clickable!
(with Javascript)

Liquid-crystal temperature maps of rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection (Vorobieff and Ecke, 1998)

Buoyancy-driven Rayleigh-Bénard instability is arguably the most widespread in nature. It is everywhere,from flows around the chips in electronic devices to atmospheric and oceanic processes and to convection in giant planets and stars. In New Mexico, Rayleigh-Bénard instability is studied at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at the University of New Mexico.

Online Posters

Impulsive Spin-Up and Spin-Down of a Convection Cell, presented at the 1997 CCCNLS conference (San Diego, CA).
Tempest in a Jar, presented at the 1997 APS-DFD meeting (San Francisco, CA).

Online Papers

Transient states during spin-up of a Rayleigh-Bénard cell, Physics of Fluids 10 No. 10, pp. 2525-2538 (1998).
Flow structure in a Rayleigh-Bénard cell upon impulsive spin-up, Journal of Fluids Engineering 120, pp. 672-675 (1998).
Turbulent rotating convection: An experimental study, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 458, pp. 191-218 (2002).

Journal links may require subscription!

Last update: Nov 20, 2003
by Peter Vorobieff