Temperature fluctuations in a convection cell with rough upper and lower surfaces - art. no. 046303

A turbulent convection experiment is conducted in a cell with rough upper a nd lower surfaces. Temperature statistics, frequency power spectrum, and th ermal dissipation are measured over varying Rayleigh numbers in the central region of the cell. The temperature histogram in the rough cell is found t o have the same exponential shape as that in the smooth cell, but the width of the distribution is increased by similar to 25%. The measured power spe ctrum shows that temperature fluctuations in the rough cell are increased u niformly across the whole frequency range. The cutoff frequency f(c) of the power spectrum and the time averaged square temperature time derivative [( partial derivativeT/partial derivativet)(2)] are used to characterize the t hermal dissipation in turbulent convection. It is found that the normalized f(c) as well as [(partial derivativeT/partial derivativet)(2)] in the smoo th and rough cells with different aspect ratios can all be superposed onto a single curve, indicating that the thermal dissipation in these cells is d etermined by the same mechanism. The experiment suggests that the enhanced heat transport observed in the rough cell is determined primarily by the lo cal dynamics near the upper and lower boundaries.