Temperature profiles measurements in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection by optical fibre system at the Barrel of II-menau

Abstract

Abstract. Modelling of large-scale natural (thermally-generated) turbulent flows (such as the turbulent convection in Earth's atmosphere, oceans, or Sun) is approached in laboratory experiments in the simplified model system called the Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC). We present preliminary measurements of vertical temperature profiles in the cell with the height of 4.7 m, 7.15 m in diameter, obtained at the Barrel of Ilmenau (BOI), the worldwide largest experimental setup to study highly turbulent RBC, newly equipped with the Luna ODiSI-B optical fibre system. In our configuration, the system permits to measure the temperature with a high spatial resolution of 5 mm along a very thin glass optical fibre with the length of 5 m and seems to be perfectly suited for measurement of time series of instantaneous vertical temperature profiles. The system was supplemented with the two Pt100 vertically movable probes specially designed by us for reference temperature profiles measurements.