Abstract

We report an experimental study of the onset of convection in ethanol/water mixtures confined in a circular cell of radial aspect ratio of 11.6. The initial bifurcation was to radial traveling waves; however, the linear state typically gave way to a nonlinear one in which convection alternately focused along one cell diameter and then another roughly perpendicular to the first. After a number of cycles, this state frequently contracted radially to a localized pulse of traveling-wave convection very similar to those observed in 1D geometries. The pulses we observed either decayed back to pure conduction or grew to fill or nearly fill the cell.

Date

June 7, 1993

Authors

Kristina Lerman, Eberhard Bodenschatz, David S Cannell, Guenter Ahlers

Journal

Physical review letters

Volume

70

Issue

23

Pages

3572

Publisher

American Physical Society