Interferometric study of buoyancy-driven convection in a differentially heated circular fluid layer

Abstract

The present study is concerned with buoyancy-driven convection experiments in a circular horizontal differentially heated layer of air. The radius-to-height ratio of 14, and Rayleigh numbers of 5,861 and 12,124 have been considered. A Mach–Zehnder interferometer has been used to visualize the convection patterns in the fluid layer. The fluid layer has been imaged at view angles of 0, 45 and 90°. Results obtained show that fringe patterns appropriate for a cavity square in plan are seen in the fluid layer during the early stages of the experiments. After the passage of the initial transients, steady fringes have been observed in the fluid layer for a Rayleigh number of 5,861. At Ra=12,124, a dominant pattern was detectable combined with mild unsteadiness. The steady thermal field at Ra=5,861 displayed symmetry with respect to the viewing angle. A stronger three dimensionality was seen at the higher Rayleigh number. The average steady state Nusselt numbers were found to vary with view angle from 1.91 to 2.04 at Ra=5,861 and 2.28 to 2.43 at Ra = 12,124. The cavity-averaged Nusselt numbers are in good agreement with the available correlations.