2005/07/06 by Guenter Ahlers, Ahlers, Guenter, Eric Brown +6
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0507051
4 pages, 5 figures. Under consideration for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett
arxiv created 2005/07/06 · openalex publication_date 2005/07/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We measured Reynolds numbers Re of turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection over the Rayleigh-number range 2 times 108 < R < 1011 and Prandtl-number range 3.3 < sigma < 29 for cylindrical samples of aspect ratio Gamma = 1. For R < Rc = 3 times 109 we found Re ~ Rbetaeff with betaeff = 0.46 < 1/2. Here both the sigma- and R-dependences are quantitatively consistent with the Grossmann-Lohse (GL) prediction. For R > Rc we found Re = 0.106 sigma-3/4 R1/2, which differs from the GL prediction. The relatively sharp transition at Rc to the large-R regime suggests a qualitative and sudden change that renders the GL prediction inapplicable.