Gravity pervades the whole universe; hence buoyancy drives fluids everywhere including those in the atmospheres and interiors of planets and stars. Prime examples of such flows are mantle convection, atmospheric flows, solar convection, dynamo process, heat exchangers, airships and hot air balloons. In this book we present fundamentals and applications of thermal convection and stratified flows.Buoyancy brings in extremely rich phenomena including waves and instabilities, patterns, chaos, and turbulence. In this book we present these topics in a systematic manner. First we present a unified treatment of linear theory that yields waves and thermal instability for stably and unstably-stratified flows respectively. We extend this analysis to include rotation and magnetic field. We also describe nonlinear saturation and pattern formation in Rayleigh-Bénard convection.The second half of the book is dedicated to buoyancy-driven turbulence, both in stably-stratified flow and in thermal convection. We describe the spectral theory including energy flux and show that the thermally-driven turbulence is similar to hydrodynamic turbulence. We also describe large-scale quantities like Reynolds and Nusselt numbers, flow anisotropy, and the dynamics of flow structures, namely flow reversals. Thus, this book presents all the major aspects of the buoyancy-driven flows in a coherent manner that would appeal to advanced graduate students and researchers.

An up-to-date comprehensive text useful for graduate students and academic researchers in the field of energy transfers in fluid flows. The initial part of the text covers discussion on energy transfer formalism in hydrodynamics and the latter part covers applications including passive scalar, buoyancy driven flows, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), dynamo, rotating flows and compressible flows. Energy transfers among large-scale modes play a critical role in nonlinear instabilities and pattern formation and is discussed comprehensively in the chapter on buoyancy-driven flows. It derives formulae to compute Kolmogorov's energy flux, shell-to-shell energy transfers and locality. The book discusses the concept of energy transfer formalism which helps in calculating anisotropic turbulence.

Advances in Heat Transfer, Volume 52, provides in-depth review articles from a broader scope than in traditional journals or texts, with this comprehensive release covering chapters on Thermal Convection Studies at the University of Minnesota, Convective heat transfer in porous passages that depends on the values of the Sparrow numbers, Automatic Code Differentiation for Thermal-Fluid Problems, Advances in Vapor Chambers and Phase Change Heat Spreaders, Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer in the Entrance Region of Microchannels, Predicting spectral thermal conductivity at the mesoscale with advanced deterministic phonon transport techniques, and Modulated-heating protocols applied to hyperthermia/thermal ablation. Fills the information gap between regularly scheduled journals and university-level textbooks by providing in-depth review articles over a broader scope than in traditional journals or texts Provides essential reading for all mechanical, chemical and industrial engineers working in the field of heat transfer Presents a great resource for use in graduate school level courses

This book presents the latest perspectives and challenges within the interrelated fields of econophysics and sociophysics, which have emerged from the application of statistical physics to economics and sociology. Economic and financial markets appear to be in a permanent state of flux. Billions of agents interact with each other, giving rise to complex dynamics of economic quantities at the micro and macro levels. With the availability of huge data sets, researchers can address questions at a much more granular level than was previously possible. Fundamental questions regarding the aggregation of actions and information and the coordination, complexity, and evolution of economic and financial networks are currently receiving much attention in the econophysics research agenda. In parallel, the sociophysics literature has focused on large-scale social data and their interrelations. In this book, leading researchers from different communities – economists, sociologists, financial analysts, mathematicians, physicists, statisticians, and others – report on their recent work and their analyses of economic and social behavior.

This book presents recent advances in dynamics and control of different types of energy systems. It covers research on dynamics and control in energy systems from different aspects, namely, combustion, multiphase flow, nuclear, chemical and thermal. The chapters start from the basic concepts so that this book can be useful even for researchers with very little background in the area. A dedicated chapter provides an overview on the fundamental aspects of the dynamical systems approach. The book will be of use to researchers and professionals alike.

This book is an introduction to the application of nonlinear dynamics to problems of stability, chaos and turbulence arising in continuous media and their connection to dynamical systems. With an emphasis on the understanding of basic concepts, it should be of interest to nearly any science-oriented undergraduate and potentially to anyone who wants to learn about recent advances in the field of applied nonlinear dynamics. Technicalities are, however, not completely avoided. They are instead explained as simply as possible using heuristic arguments and specific worked examples.