An experimental research on the instability of natural convection boundary layer around a vertical heated flat plate

Experimental results on the instability of the isothermal naturalconvection boundary layer around a vertical heated flat plate are presented. It is demonstrated that the characteristics of the instability wave in the outer layer is consistent with the calculation of Brewster & Gebhart. After an initial growth of its low frequency components at the downstream side of the turning point of the neutral curve (Gr≈120) its comparatively higher frequency components develop and become turbulent subsequently with a buoyancy subrange in its power spectra. Simultaneously, in the measurement at the inner layer near the wall a viscous instability signal the same as the Tollmien-Schlichting waves in ordinary boundary layer and its subharmonics in a much higher frequency domain is discovered and an inertial subrange can be observed in the spectra atGr≈378.6. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (19572004)