HEAT TRANSPORT IN TRANSITIONAL REGIMES OF THERMAL CONVECTION

A study of transition to turbulence in Rayleigh-Benard thermal convection is performed and transitional regimes are identified by the use of a Karhunen-Loeve (K-L) basis in an earlier work [1]. This basis is empirically generated from a numerical realization of turbulent thermal convection flow field and, thus, it is specific to the flow under consideration. In this work, we use the attached physical meaning to the K-L basis elements to provide an explanation for the experimentally observed changes in the convective heat transport as the flow goes through the transitional regimes.