Lord Rayleigh, in his December 1916, pioneering paper [1] devoted to ‘On Convection Currents in a Horizontal Layer of Fluid, when the Higher Temperature is on the Under Side’ first wrote The present paper is an attempt to examine how far the interesting results obtained during the years 1900–19001 by Bénard [2] in his careful and skilful experiments can be explained theoretically. Bénard worked with very thin layers, only about 1 mm. deep, standing on a levelled metallic plate which was maintained at a uniform temperature. The upper surface was usually free, and being in contact with the air was at a lower temperature. Various liquids were employed.
The layer rapidly resolves itself into a number of cells, the motion being an ascension at the middle of a cell and a descension at the common boundary between a cell and its neighbours.
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(2009). The Simple Rayleigh (1916) Thermal Convection Problem. In: Convection in Fluids. Fluid Mechanics and its Applications, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2433-6_3
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