Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T13:01:36.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contained non-homogeneous flow under gravity or how to stratify a fluid in the laboratory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2006

Gösta Walin
Gösta Walin
Affiliation:
Swedish Natural Science Research Council and International Meteorological Institute in Stockholm, Sweden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is demonstrated that the basic stratification in a fluid region subject to thermal forcing may be predicted rather simply for a fairly wide class of boundary conditions. Explicit solutions are derived in certain cases. A useful experimental method for maintaining a stratified system with arbitrarily specified vertical variation of density emerges from the analysis. A preliminary laboratory experiment has demonstrated the efficiency of this method. The restrictions on the validity of the theory involve a limitation on the thermal forcing of the fluid, which may be expressed as an upper limit on the thermal conductance of the boundary of the region. Furthermore, the buoyancy frequency characterizing the solution must be sufficiently large to give rise to a boundary-layer-type flow pattern.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , 27 August 1971 , pp. 647 - 672
Copyright
© 1971 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, D. J. 1966 A technique for the precise measurement of small fluid velocities J. Fluid Mech. 26, 573.Google Scholar
Barcilon, V. & Pedlosky, J. 1967 On the steady motions produced by a stable stratification in a rapidly rotating fluid J. Fluid Mech. 29, 673.Google Scholar
Brooks, I. H. & Ostrach, S. 1970 An experimental investigation of natural convection in a horizontal cylinder J. Fluid Mech. 44, 545.Google Scholar
Gill, A. E. 1966 The boundary-layer régime for convection in a rectangular cavity J. Fluid Mech. 26, 515.Google Scholar
McIntyre, M. E. 1968 The axisymmetric convective régime for a rigidly bounded rotating annulus J. Fluid Mech. 32, 625.Google Scholar
Petrovsky, I. G. 1954 Lectures on Partial Differential Equations. Cambridge University Press.
Stewartson, K. 1966 On almost rigid rotations. Part 2 J. Fluid Mech. 26, 131.Google Scholar
Veronis, G. 1967a Analogous behaviour of homogeneous, rotating fluids and stratified, non-rotating fluids Tellus, 19, 326.Google Scholar
Veronis, G. 1967b Analogous behaviour of rotating and stratified fluids Tellus, 19, 620.Google Scholar
Weinbaum, S. 1964 Natural convection in a horizontal circular cylinder J. Fluid Mech. 18, 409.Google Scholar
Yih, C-S. 1965 Dynamics of Nonhomogeneous Fluids. Macmillan.