Experiments on Convective Flows in Geophysical Fluid Systems 



Streamlines 



r~\ 



Vertical Velocity 



3w - 



3x 



Temperature 



II -0 



3x 



Fig. 8 - Symmetry sketch of Benard cells 



state as input for the next case, to see how far a single cell could be "stretched" 

 without breaking up into multiple vortices of opposite circulation. So far a 

 value of 2.8 has been reached with no real sign of a breakup; a lower limit to y 

 has not been reached as yet. The heat transfer variation with y is tabulated 

 below (n = Nusselt number): 



N 



3.084 

 3.028 

 2.941 

 2.736 

 2.808 

 2.978 

 2.534 

 2.208 



According to the above results, the y of maximum heat transfer must be <.8. 

 Work is under way to find its value as closely as possible. 



The runs denoted by (a), (b), and (c) for 7 = 1.68 (illustrated in Fig. 9) 

 comprise the second approach in this investigation. Here it was sought to find 

 the largest and smallest value of /' for which a perturbation of given amplitude 

 and containing only the /' harmonic can come to steady state in a fluid volume 



773 



