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We investigate the structures of the near-plate velocity and temperature profiles at different horizontal positions along the conducting bottom (and top) plate of a Rayleigh-Bénard convection cell, using two-dimensional (2D) numerical data obtained at the Rayleigh number Ra = 108 and the Prandtl number Pr = 4.4 of an Oberbeck-Boussinesq flow with constant material parameters. The results show that most of the time, and for both velocity and temperature, the instantaneous profiles scaled by the dynamical frame method [Q. Zhou and K.-Q. Xia, 'Measured instantaneous viscous boundary layer in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection,' Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 104301 (2010)] agree well with the classical Prandtl-Blasius laminar boundary layer (BL) profiles. Therefore, when averaging in the dynamical reference frames, which fluctuate with the respective instantaneous kinematic and thermal BL thicknesses, the obtained mean velocity and temperature profiles are also of Prandtl-Blasius type for nearly all horizontal positions. We further show that in certain situations the traditional definitions based on the time-averaged profiles can lead to unphysical BL thicknesses, while the dynamical method also in such cases can provide a well-defined BL thickness for both the kinematic and the thermal BLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report heat transfer and flow dynamics measurements of alumina nanofluid in turbulent convective flow. Under the condition of fixed temperature at the top plate and fixed input heat flux at the bottom plate, it has been found that the convective heat transfer coefficient, h, Nusselt number, Nu, and Rayleigh number, Ra, all decrease with the increasing volume fraction [lowercase_phi_synonym] of the nanoparticle. In contrast, the velocity of the convective flow showed no significant change within experimental uncertainty and over the range of nanoparticle concentration of the measurement (from 0% to 1.08%). Under the condition of constant nanoparticle concentration ([lowercase_phi_synonym]=1.08%), a second set of measurements of the heat transport and flow properties have been made over a broad range of Ra (from 2.6×108 to 7.7×109). For heat transport, a transition near Rac≃2.5×109 has been found. For Ra>Rac, the measured Nu of the nanofluid is roughly the same as that of water in terms of both its magnitude and its scaling relation with Ra, which suggests that the nanofluid can be treated as a single phase fluid in this parameter range. For Rac, Nu becomes smaller than that of the water and the deviation becomes larger with decreasing Ra. In the parameter range of Rac, the measured instantaneous Nu(t) shows strong and quasiperiodic fluctuations, which is absent when Ra>Rac. This suggests that the significant decrease of the nanofluid Nu comparing to that of water may be caused by the mass diffusion of nanoparticles. Furthermore, measurements of the flow velocity of the bulk nanofluid showed no significant difference from that of water for Ra either above or below Rac. From estimated thermal boundary layer thickness, we found that the deviations of the nanofluid Nu from that of water for Rac corresponds to the thickening of the thermal boundary layer at both the top and bottom plates. This thickening of the boundary layer at low input heat flux (or low driving strength of the convective flow) cannot be attributed to possible sedimentation of the nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a scheme to extract the velocity of buoyant structures in turbulent thermal convection from simultaneous local velocity and temperature measurements. Applying this scheme to measurements taken at positions within the convection cell where the buoyant structures are dominated by plumes, we obtain the temperature dependence of the plume velocity and understand our results using the equations of motion. We further obtain the scaling behavior of the average local heat flux in the vertical direction at the cell center with the Rayleigh number and find that the scaling exponent is different from that measured for the Nusselt number. This difference leads to the conclusion that heat cannot be mainly transported through the central region of the convection cell.