一、题　目：Experimental Investigations in Thermal Convection

 

二、报告人：Dr. Jian-Qiang Zhong（Yale University）

 

三、时　间：３月２１日（周一），下午２:００

 

四、地　点：物理馆５１２学术会议室

 

 

Abstract:

Thermal convection is ubiquitous in nature. It occurs in heat pipes in liquid-cooling computers where it provides high thermal conductance for heat emission; in aqueous suspensions of DNA molecules where it can enhance the Polymerase Chain Reaction; in the Earth's mantle layer where it determines the motion of continental plates.

 

In the first experimental project we presented a laboratory analogue study on the interaction between mantle convection and tectonic plates. We discovered that a freely moving boundary, which was deliberately introduced on top of a thermally convective fluid, could modify the large-scale flow pattern in the fluid interior and destabilized the coupled system, leading to spontaneous oscillations.

 

In the second experimental project we reported that heat transport in rotating thermal convection was strongly dependent on the fluid Prandtl number (Pr) and the Rayleigh number (Ra).