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Boundary-layer analysis of the thermal bar

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journal contribution
posted on 2009-02-17, 10:54 authored by Anthony Kay, H.K. Kuiken, J.H. Merkin
The thermal bar, a descending plane plume of fluid at the temperature of maximum density (3.98° C in water), is analysed as a laminar free-convection boundary layer, following the example of Kuiken & Rotem (1971) for the plume above a line source of heat. Numerical integration of the similarity form of the boundary-layer equations yields values of the vertical velocity and temperature gradient on the centre line and the horizontal velocity induced outside the thermal bar as functions of Prandtl number σ. The asymptotic behaviour of these parameters for both large and small σ is also obtained; in these cases, the thermal bar has a two-layer structure, and the method of matched asymptotic expansions is used. For the intermediate case σ= 1, an analytical calculation using approximate velocity and temperature profiles in the integrated boundary-layer equations yields good agreement with the numerical results. The applicability of the results to naturally occurring thermal bars (e. g. in lakes) is limited, but the laminar-flow analysis is likely to relate more closely to the phenomenon on a laboratory scale.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematical Sciences

Citation

KAY, A., KUIKEN, H.K. and MERKIN, J.H., 1995. Boundary-layer analysis of the thermal bar. Journal of Fluid Mechanics Digital Archive, 303, pp. 253-278

Publisher

© Cambridge University Press

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publication date

1995

Notes

This article was published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics [© Cambridge University Press] and is also available at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=340146

ISSN

0022-1120;1469-7645

Language

  • en

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