Abstract: | The results of investigating convective fluid motion in a closed toroidal channel are analyzed and compared with the results of calculations based on the Lorenz model. It is shown that this model adequately describes the fluid convection only in the case of a large aspect ratio of the mean radius of the torus to its cross-sectional dimension and small heating power. The measurements and visual observations record substantial deviations from the assumptions underlying the Lorenz model in the domain of problem parameters in which, in accordance with the calculations, bifurcations and instability of steady solutions of the Lorenz model should take place.Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 20–28, July–August, 1995. |