Аннотация

Thermal Convection – Patterns, Stages of Evolution and Stability Behavior provides the reader with an ensemble picture of the subject, illustrating the state-of-the-art and providing the researchers from universities and industry with a basis on which they are able to estimate the possible impact of a variety of parameters. Unlike earlier books on the subject, the heavy mathematical background underlying and governing the behaviors illustrated in the text are kept to a minimum. The text clarifies some still unresolved controversies pertaining to the physical nature of the dominating driving force responsible for asymmetric/oscillatory convection in various natural phenomena and/or technologically important processes and can help researchers in elaborating and validating new, more complex models, in accelerating the current trend towards predictable and reproducible natural phenomena and in establishing an adequate scientific foundation to industrial processes. Thermal Convection – Patterns, Stages of Evolution and Stability Behavior is intended as a useful reference guide for specialists in disciplines such as the metallurgy and foundry field and researchers and scientists who are now coordinating their efforts to improve the quality of semiconductor or macromolecular crystals. The text may also be of use to organic chemists and materials scientists, atmosphere and planetary physicists, as well as an advanced level text for students taking part in courses on the physics of fluids, fluid mechanics, the behavior and evolution of non-linear systems, environmental phenomena and materials engineering.

Аннотация

Rotating Thermal Flows in Natural and Industrial Processes provides the reader with a systematic description of the different types of thermal convection and flow instabilities in rotating systems, as present in materials, crystal growth, thermal engineering, meteorology, oceanography, geophysics and astrophysics. It expressly shows how the isomorphism between small and large scale phenomena becomes beneficial to the definition and ensuing development of an integrated comprehensive framework. This allows the reader to understand and assimilate the underlying, quintessential mechanisms without requiring familiarity with specific literature on the subject. Topics treated in the first part of the book include: • Thermogravitational convection in rotating fluids (from laminar to turbulent states); • Stably stratified and unstratified shear flows; • Barotropic and baroclinic instabilities; • Rossby waves and Centrifugally-driven convection; • Potential Vorticity, Quasi-Geostrophic Theory and related theorems; • The dynamics of interacting vortices, interacting waves and mixed (hybrid) vortex-wave states; • Geostrophic Turbulence and planetary patterns. The second part is entirely devoted to phenomena of practical interest, i.e. subjects relevant to the realms of industry and technology, among them: • Surface-tension-driven convection in rotating fluids; • Differential-rotation-driven (forced) flows; • Crystal Growth from the melt of oxide or semiconductor materials; • Directional solidification; • Rotating Machinery; • Flow control by Rotating magnetic fields; • Angular Vibrations and Rocking motions; Covering a truly prodigious range of scales, from atmospheric and oceanic processes and fluid motion in “other solar-system bodies”, to convection in its myriad manifestations in a variety of applications of technological relevance, this unifying text is an ideal reference for physicists and engineers, as well as an important resource for advanced students taking courses on the physics of fluids, fluid mechanics, thermal, mechanical and materials engineering, environmental phenomena, meteorology and geophysics.