New Results in Cryogenic Helium Flows at Ultra-high Reynolds and Rayleigh Numbers

J. J. Niemela, L. Skrbek, C. Swanson, S. Hall, K. R. Sreenivasan, R. J. Donnelly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Liquid helium I, II and cryogenic helium gas are used to generate and study highly turbulent flows under controlled laboratory conditions. These three working fluids have remarkable versatility, allowing extremely large values and dynamic ranges of the Reynolds (Re) and Rayleigh (Ra) numbers to be reached. In particular, cryogenic helium gas has been used to study turbulent thermal convection in a range 106 ≤ Ra ≤ 1017, by far the largest ever attained in a controlled experiment on turbulence. The upper limit exceeds previous studies by nearly three orders of magnitude.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)417-422
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Low Temperature Physics
Volume121
Issue number5-6
DOIs
StatePublished - 2000

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'New Results in Cryogenic Helium Flows at Ultra-high Reynolds and Rayleigh Numbers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this