Summary: A numerical study of flow and thermal fields in tilted
Rayleigh­Bénard convection
Daniel W. Crunkleton a,, Timothy J. Anderson b
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104, USA
b
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Available online 21 October 2005
Abstract
Convection in enclosures heated from below can affect crystals grown from melts. Experiments designed to study such
convection can be influenced by small tilts of the experimental system with respect to gravity. Because of the additional body force,
tilting can mask flow transition points, making comparisons with stability studies difficult. In this study, the classic Rayleigh­
Bénard problem is re-examined numerically with the addition of various tilt angles in cubical enclosures of liquid tin (Pr=0.008).
The results presented are applied to experiments which measure both molecular diffusivities as well as convection in the melt.
© 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Tilted Rayleigh­Bénard convection; Numerical simulations
1. Introduction
Thermally driven convection in enclosures heated from below (Bénard or Rayleigh­Bénard convection, "RBC"
[1,2]) is an important problem that has been studied for several decades. RBC is important to crystal growth from melts
because uneven heating can lead to buoyancy-induced convection which adversely affects the quality of a crystal

Source: Anderson, Timothy J. - Chemical Engineering Department, University of Florida

Collections: Materials Science