This seminar is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Complex Systems and the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering

Abstract:
Turbulent systems are all around us, from waves crashing on our beaches, to smoke rising from the fires in our mountains, to the air that can disrupt our smooth airline flights. But, turbulent systems are not well understood. Rayleigh-Benard Convection is a more simplified system which captures some of the key features of turbulence, including thermal plumes, thin boundary layers and large-scale flow. In Rayleigh-Benard convection, an enclosed fluid is bounded by horizontal parallel plates kept at a constant temperature difference. Results from numerical simulations of the equations which describe Rayleigh-Benard convection will be discussed and compared to experimental and theoretical results. These include flows in air and liquid metals in confined containers in addition to more horizontally extended systems.