Uploaded October 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In this movie, made by UCLA students Hayley Bricker and Gurjot Kohli, images of rotating convection supercomputer simulations are compared against laboratory experiments in which we sprayed green food coloring (density ~ 1.02 g/cc) into a rotating tank of water (~ 1 g/cc). The movie shows the columnar convective flows that develop, and which are well aligned along the system's axis of rotation. This style of flow develops in rapidly rotating laboratory and numerical experiments, suggesting that this is a relatively robust behavior in a wide range of settings.
The side view footage of the lab experiment reveals a rather strong free surface wave (e.g., 1:18 - 1:30). This occurs because we didn't leveled the tank all that precisely. Further, the tank appears to precess in the top view footage (1:35 - 1:40). This occurs because we shot that with a camera in the lab frame and then Sam May “digitally transformed” that footage into the rotating reference frame. Since the lab-frame camera was not exactly above the rotation axis, the digital transformation makes the tank appear to precess in the counterclockwise direction.
We thank Thomas Gastine (IPGP), Moritz Heimpel (U of Alberta), Keith Julien (CU Boulder), Sam May (UCSD) and Krista Soderlund (UTIG) for supplying images and movies. In addition, thanks go to Gary Glesener (VaTech) for designing and building the rotary table.
In this movie, made by UCLA students Hayley Bricker and Gurjot Kohli, images of rotating convection supercomputer simulations are compared against laboratory experiments in which we sprayed green food coloring (density ~ 1.02 g/cc) into a rotating tank of water (~ 1 g/cc). The movie shows the columnar convective flows that develop, and which are well aligned along the system's axis of rotation. This style of flow develops in rapidly rotating laboratory and numerical experiments, suggesting that this is a relatively robust behavior in a wide range of settings.
The side view footage of the lab experiment reveals a rather strong free surface wave (e.g., 1:18 - 1:30). This occurs because we didn't leveled the tank all that precisely. Further, the tank appears to precess in the top view footage (1:35 - 1:40). This occurs because we shot that with a camera in the lab frame and then Sam May “digitally transformed” that footage into the rotating reference frame. Since the lab-frame camera was not exactly above the rotation axis, the digital transformation makes the tank appear to precess in the counterclockwise direction.
We thank Thomas Gastine (IPGP), Moritz Heimpel (U of Alberta), Keith Julien (CU Boulder), Sam May (UCSD) and Krista Soderlund (UTIG) for supplying images and movies. In addition, thanks go to Gary Glesener (VaTech) for designing and building the rotary table.
