Particle-driven convection

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Megan Davies Wykes (University of Cambridge)
• Thursday 30 October 2025, 11:30-12:30
• Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Catherine Pearson.

Particle-driven convection occurs when a dense particle-laden layer settles into a layer of clear fluid. This can drive a variation on the classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability, where particles induce the density difference between the two fluids. Variants of this instability occur in many geophysical flows, such as the undersides of volcanic ash clouds, sediment-laden river outflows, and the dynamics of droplets in clouds. This talk will present some new experimental results of Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurring between a particle-laden and fresh-water layers. I will also present some preliminary results that examine the effect of adding salt to the lower layer. For this second case, the initial stratification is stable, but becomes unstable due to particle settling.

This talk is part of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF) series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cambridge Energy Seminars
• Department of Earth Sciences seminars
• Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF)
• MyList
• NanoDTC Energy Materials Talks
• Open Plan Area, Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ
• history
• ps635

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.