Go With the Flow: Numerical Simulations of Turbulence in Fluids

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Speaker(s): Janet Scheel

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 makes our airline flights bouncy and sometimes downright frightening. 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 and a large-scale circulation. In Rayleigh-Benard convection, a cylindrical fluid cell 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 compared to experimental and theoretical results.

Colloquium

Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.