Aspect-ratio dependence of charge transport in turbulent electroconvection.
We present measurements of the normalized charge transport or Nusselt number Nu as a function of the aspect ratio Gamma for turbulent convection in an electrically driven film. In analogy with turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection, we develop the relevant theoretical framework in which we discuss the local power-law scaling of Nu with a dimensionless electrical forcing parameter R. For these experiments where 10(4) less, similar R less, similar 2 x 10(5) we find that Nu approximately F(Gamma)Rgamma with either gamma=0.26 (+/-0.02) or gamma=0.20 (+/-0.03), in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions of gamma=1/4 and 1/5. Our measurements of the aspect-ratio dependence of Nu for 0.3</=Gamma</=17 compares favorably with the function F(Gamma) from the scaling theory.
Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A7.
Peichun
P
Tsai
Zahir A
ZA
Daya
Stephen W
SW
Morris