Heat Transport Scaling in Turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard Convection: Effects of Rotation and Prandtl Number

We report experimental measurements of turbulent heat transport in rotating Rayleigh-B\'enard convection. The fluid was water with Prandtl number 3<σ<7. Heat transport and local temperature measurements were made for Rayleigh numbers 2×10⁵<Ra<5×10⁸ and Taylor numbers 0≤Ta≤5×10⁹. For fixed convective Rossby numbers Ro between 0.1 and 1.5, the Nusselt number N scaled closely as the 2/7 power of Ra but had very little variation with the Prandtl number σ and only a moderate increase with increasing rotation rate. Substantial disagreement is found with existing scaling theories.