Lecture

Thermal Instabilities: Rayleigh-Benard Analysis

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In course

ME-466: Instability

This course focuses on the physical mechanisms at the origin of the transition of a flow from laminar to turbulent using the hydrodynamic instability theory. ...

Description

This lecture covers various fluid instabilities, including Rayleigh-Taylor, Tollmien-Schlichting, and Rayleigh-Benard. The focus is on the Rayleigh-Benard instability, analyzing its physical mechanism, equations, base state, linearized equations, normal mode expansion, and dispersion relation. The lecture also discusses the critical length, diffusive and advective time scales, and the threshold for instability. Key concepts such as buoyancy force, drag force, and the effects of temperature gradients on stability are explored.

Instructor

François Gallaire

google scholar https://scholar.google.ch/citations?hl=fr&user=T3OooAcAAAAJ François Gallaire earned his engineering degree from Ecole Polytechnique in 1998 and a master's in Liquids Physics from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 1999. He completed his PhD in 2002 at LadHyX on swirling flow instabilities and vortex breakdown. After six years at the Mathematics department of Université de Nice, he joined EPFL in 2009, founding the Fluid Mechanics and Instabilities Lab (LFMI). He became an associate professo

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Physics

Mechanics: Fluid mechanics

Related concepts (32)

Fluid dynamics

In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion). Fluid dynamics has a wide range of applications, including calculating forces and moments on aircraft, determining the mass flow rate of petroleum through pipelines, predicting weather patterns, understanding nebulae in interstellar space and modelling fission weapon detonation.

Drag (physics)

In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called fluid resistance) is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two fluid layers (or surfaces) or between a fluid and a solid surface. Unlike other resistive forces, such as dry friction, which are nearly independent of velocity, the drag force depends on velocity. Drag force is proportional to the velocity for low-speed flow and the squared velocity for high speed flow, where the distinction between low and high speed is measured by the Reynolds number.

Drag coefficient

In fluid dynamics, the drag coefficient (commonly denoted as: , or ) is a dimensionless quantity that is used to quantify the drag or resistance of an object in a fluid environment, such as air or water. It is used in the drag equation in which a lower drag coefficient indicates the object will have less aerodynamic or hydrodynamic drag. The drag coefficient is always associated with a particular surface area. The drag coefficient of any object comprises the effects of the two basic contributors to fluid dynamic drag: skin friction and form drag.

Fluid mechanics

Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasmas) and the forces on them. It has applications in a wide range of disciplines, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical, and biomedical engineering, as well as geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, astrophysics, and biology. It can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion.

Lift-induced drag

In aerodynamics, lift-induced drag, induced drag, vortex drag, or sometimes drag due to lift, is an aerodynamic drag force that occurs whenever a moving object redirects the airflow coming at it. This drag force occurs in airplanes due to wings or a lifting body redirecting air to cause lift and also in cars with airfoil wings that redirect air to cause a downforce. It is symbolized as , and the lift-induced drag coefficient as . For a constant amount of lift, induced drag can be reduced by increasing airspeed.

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