We present global heat-transfer and local temperature measurements, in an asymmetric parallelepiped Rayleigh-Bénard cell, in which controlled square-studs roughnesses have been added. A global heat transfer enhancement arises when the thickness of the boundary layer matches the height of the roughnesses. The enhanced regime exhibits an increase of the heat transfer scaling. Local temperature measurements have been carried out in the range of parameters where the enhancement of the global heat transfer is observed. They show that the boundary layer at the top of the square-stub roughness is thinner than the boundary layer of a smooth plate, which accounts for most of the heat-transfer enhancement. We also report multistability at long time scales between two enhanced heat-transfer regimes. The flow structure of both regimes is imaged with background-oriented synthetic Schlieren and reveals intermittent bursts of coherent plumes.

We investigate experimentally the electrokinetic properties of soft nanofluidic channels that consist in soap films with nanometric thickness, covered with charged surfactants. Both the electric and fluidic responses of the system are measured under an applied voltage drop along the film. The electric field is shown to induce an electro-osmotic hydrodynamic flow in the film. However, in contrast to systems confined between solid surfaces, the soft nature of the nanochannel results furthermore in a thickening of the film. This effect accordingly increases the total electro-osmotic flow rate, which behaves nonlinearly with the applied electric field. This behavior is rationalized in terms of an analogy with a Landau-Levich film withdrawn from a reservoir, with the driving velocity identified here with the electro-osmotic one.

Several Rayleigh-Bénard experiments in water are performed with smooth or rough boundaries. We present new thermal transfer measurements obtained with large roughness elements arranged in a square lattice. The data are compared to previous ones obtained with smaller elements in the same cell (Tisserand et al., 2011). Experiments in the same apparatus without roughness are fully presented, as reference results, to allow for comparison. In the rough case, several regimes of heat transfer are identified : one similar to the smooth case, an enhanced heat transfer one characterized by a modification of the Nusselt vs Rayleigh numbers relation, and a third part where the relation can be similar to a smooth one with a corrected prefactor.

In this experimental work, the aim is to understand how turbulent thermal flows are enhanced by the destabilization of the boundary layers. Square-stud roughness elements have been added on the bottom plate of a rectangular Rayleigh-Bénard cell in air, to trigger instabilities in the boundary layers. The top plate is kept smooth. The cell proportions are identical to those of the water cell previously operated and described by Salort et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 26, 2014, 015112), but six times larger. The very large size of the Barrel of Ilmenau allows detailed velocity fields to be obtained using particle image velocimetry very close to the roughness elements. We found that the flow is quite different at low Rayleigh numbers, where there is no heat-transfer enhancement, and at high Rayleigh numbers where there is a heat-transfer enhancement due to the roughness. Below the transition, the fluid inside the notch, i.e. between the studs, is essentially at rest, though it is slowly recirculating. The velocity profiles on the top of obstacles and in grooves are fairly compatible with those obtained in the smooth case. Above the transition, on the other hand, we observe large incursions of the bulk inside the notch, and the velocity profiles on the top of obstacles are closer to the logarithmic profiles expected in the case of turbulent boundary layers.

International audienceWe report joint Lagrangian velocity and temperature measurements in turbulent thermal convection. Measurements are performed using an improved version (extended autonomy) of the neutrally-buoyant instrumented particle [Shew et al., 2007] that was used by Gasteuil et al. [2007] to performed experiments in a parallelepipedic Rayleigh-Bénard cell. The temperature signal is obtained from a RF-transmitter. Simultaneously, we determine particle's position and velocity with one camera, which grants access to the Lagrangian heat flux. Due to the extended autonomy of the present particle, we obtain well converged temperature and velocity statistics, as well as pseudo-eulerian maps of velocity and heat flux. Present experimental results have also been compared with the results obtained by a corresponding campaign of Direct Numerical Simulations and Lagrangian Tracking of massless tracers. The comparison between experimental and numerical results shows the accuracy and reliability of our experimental measurements and points also out the finite-size effects of the particle. Finally, the analysis of Lagrangian velocity and temperature frequency spectra is shown and discussed. In particular, we observe that temperature spectra exhibit an anomalous f −2.5 frequency scaling, likely representing the ubiquitous passive and active scalar behavior of temperature

Blockage of pores by particles is found in many processes, including filtration and oil extraction. We present filtration experiments through a linear array of ten channels with one dimension which is sub-micron, through which a dilute dispersion of Brownian polystyrene spheres flows under the action of a fixed pressure drop. The growth rate of a clog formed by particles at a pore entrance systematically increases with the number of already saturated (entirely clogged) pores, indicating that there is an interaction or “cross-talk” between the pores. This observation is interpreted based on a phenomenological model, stating that a diffusive redistribution of particles occurs along the membrane, from clogged to free pores. This one-dimensional model could be extended to two-dimensional membranes.

International audienceWe present an experimental study of non-homogeneous turbulence using a Rayleigh-Bénard convection cell. The fluid motion is forced by a temperature difference between two horizontal plates. Using Lagrangian tracking on a large volume we can capture part of the Large Scale Circulation. The velocity statistics are strongly affected by the inhomogeneous mean flow but we recover the typical Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence statistics by removing the local average. We discuss and explain a Lagrangian unsteadiness which persists because of the Large Scale Circulation oscillations. Our Lagrangian approach is a new way to study specificities of the convective roll motions in turbulent thermal convection. We propose a model based on the convolution between the Large Scale Circulation oscillations and the turbulent fluctuations to explain the shape of the velocity PDFs. However, the acceleration statistics are not affected by the mean flow

We report Particle Image Velocimetry of the Large Scale Circulation and the viscous boundary layer in turbulent thermal convection. We use two parallelepipedic Rayleigh-Bénard cells with a top smooth plate. The first one has a rough bottom plate and the second one has a smooth one so we compare the rough-smooth and the smooth-smooth configurations. The dimensions of the cell allow to consider a bi-dimensional mean flow. Lots of previous heat flux measurements have shown a Nusselt-Rayleigh regime transition corresponding to an increase of the heat flux in presence of roughness which is higher than the surface increase. Our velocity measurements show that if the mean velocity field is not clearly affected by the roughness, the velocity fluctuations rise dramatically. It is accompanied by a change of the longitudinal velocity structure functions scaling. Moreover, we show that the boundary layer becomes turbulent close to roughness, as it was observed recently in the air [Liot et al., JFM, vol. 786,. Finally we discuss the link between the change of the boundary layer structure and the ones observed on the velocity fluctuations.