The GEOFLOW-experiment on ISS (Part III): Bifurcation analysis Original Research Article

Codimension 2 bifurcation of convective patterns in the nonrotating spherical Bénard Problem of Boussinesq fluid is studied using center manifold reduction. The aim is to determine, in the GEOFLOW-experiment framework, the physical parameters in order to obtain intermittent-like behaviour dynamics. We compute the critical aspect ratio and Rayleigh number corresponding to the (ℓ, ℓ+1) mode interaction. In the case of the (2,3) interaction, the existence of heteroclinic cycles are examined versus the Prandtl number.