We report high-resolution local-temperature measurements in the upper boundary layer of turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard (RB) convection with variable Rayleigh number Ra and aspect ratio Γ. The primary purpose of the work is to create a comprehensive data set of temperature profiles against which various phenomenological theories and numerical simulations can be tested. We performed two series of measurements for air (Pr = 0.7) in a cylindrical container, which cover a range from Ra≈109 to Ra≈1012 and from Γ≈1 to Γ≈10. In the first series Γ was varied while the temperature difference was kept constant, whereas in the second series the aspect ratio was set to its lowest possible value, Γ=1.13, and Ra was varied by changing the temperature difference. We present the profiles of the mean temperature, root-mean-square (r.m.s.) temperature fluctuation, skewness and kurtosis as functions of the vertical distance z from the cooling plate. Outside the (very short) linear part of the thermal boundary layer the non-dimensional mean temperature Θ is found to scale as Θ(z)∼zα, the exponent α≈0.5 depending only weakly on Ra and Γ. This result supports neither Prandtl's one-third law nor a logarithmic scaling law for the mean temperature. The r.m.s. temperature fluctuation σ is found to decay with increasing distance from the cooling plate according to σ(z)∼zβ, where the value of β is in the range -0.30>β>-0.42 and depends on both Ra and Γ. Priestley's β=−1/3 law is consistent with this finding but cannot explain the variation in the scaling exponent. In addition to profiles we also present and discuss boundary-layer thicknesses, Nusselt numbers and their scaling with Ra and Γ.

The large scale “wind of turbulence” of thermally driven flow is analyzed for very large Rayleigh numbers between 4∙1011 and 7∙1011 and Prandtl number of 0.71 (air at 40°C) and aspect ratios order of one. The wind direction near the upper plate is found to horizontally oscillate with a typical time scale very similar to the large eddy turnover time. The temporal autocorrelation of the wind direction reveals an extremely long memory of the system for the direction. We then apply and extend the dynamical model of Gledzer, Dolzhansky, and Obukhov to the flow, which is based on the Boussinesq equations in the bulk and which can be solved analytically in the inviscid and unforced limit, but which completely ignores the boundary layer and plume dynamics. Nevertheless, the model correctly reproduces both the oscillations of the horizontal wind direction and its very long memory. It is therefore concluded that the boundary layers and the plumes are not necessary to account for the oscillations of the wind direction. The oscillations rather occur as intrinsic precession of the bulk flow.

We report highly resolved temperature measurements in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection in air at a fixed Prandtl number Pr = 0.7. Extending our previous work (du Puits et al 2007 J. Fluid Mech. 572 231-54), we carried out measurements at various aspect ratios while keeping the Rayleigh number constant. We demonstrate that the temperature field inside the convective boundary layers of both horizontal plates is virtually independent on the global flow pattern accompanying the variation in the aspect ratio. Thanks to technical upgrades of the experimental facility as well as a significant improvement of the accuracy and reliability of our temperature measurement-and unlike in our previous work-we find that the measured profiles of the time-averaged temperature field neither follow a clear power-law trend nor fit a linear or a logarithmic scaling over a significant fraction of the boundary-layer thickness. Analyzing the temperature data simultaneously acquired at both horizontal plates, various transitions in the cross-correlation and the auto-correlation function of the temperature signals are observed while varying the aspect

We report experiments on turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection of air in a cylindrical large-scale facility with a diameter of 7 meters and Rayleigh numbers up to Ra approximately 10(12). The facility is used to explore the structure of the large-scale circulation for continuously varying aspect ratios between Gamma approximately 1 and Gamma approximately 10. Using autocorrelation functions derived from high-resolution time series of temperature and velocity near the cooling plate we demonstrate that the well-known single-roll structure (often called "wind") breaks down when the aspect ratio increases beyond the critical value Gamma(1) = 1.68+/-0.22. We further show that at Gamma(2) = 3.66+/-0.46 a second transition from an oscillatory two-roll structure to an unstable multi-roll structure takes place. The value of Gamma(2) represents a lower bound for the aspect ratio that is necessary to reach homogeneous convection--a turbulent state that is free from the influence of lateral walls.

We report measurements and numerical simulations of the three-dimensional velocity and temperature fields in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection in air. Highly resolved velocity and temperature measurements inside and outside the boundary layers have been directly compared with equivalent data obtained in direct numerical simulations (DNSs). This comparison comprises a set of two Rayleigh numbers at Ra=3×10(9) and 3×10(10) and a fixed aspect ratio; this is the ratio between the diameter and the height of the Rayleigh-Bénard cell of Γ=1. We find that the measured velocity data are in excellent agreement with the DNS results while the temperature data slightly differ. In particular, the measured mean temperature profile does not show the linear trend as seen in the DNS data, and the measured gradients at the wall are significantly higher than those obtained from the DNS. Both viscous and thermal boundary layer thickness scale with respect to the Rayleigh number as δ(v)~Ra(-0.24) and δ(θ)~Ra(-0.24), respectively.