FREE-CONVECTION IN LIQUID GALLIUM

Free convection in liquid metals is of significant practical interest to the crystal-growing community since the adverse effects of convecti ve instabilities in the melt phase can be frozen into the solid produc t. Here, we present the results of a combined numerical and experiment al study of steady convective flows in a sample of liquid gallium whic h is heated at one end and cooled at the other. Experimental measureme nts of temperature distributions in the flow are compared with the sta ndard Hadley-cell solution and with the numerical results obtained fro m a two-dimensional model. Excellent quantitative agreement is found b etween all three for low Grashof numbers but a systematic divergence b etween the results is seen as this parameter is increased.