Natural convection in a shallow cavity with differentially heated end walls. Part 3. Experimental results

Abstract

The steady motion of water in an enclosed rectangular cavity with differentially heated vertical end walls was studied experimentally, and the results are compared with the findings of parts 1 and 2. The depth-to-length ratios of the cavities were 10 2 and 1·9 × 10 2 , and the Rayleigh number was allowed to vary sufficiently to enable a study to be made of the transition from a flow driven by the vertical wall boundary layers to one sustained by a longitudinal temperature gradient in the central sections of the cavity.