Turbulent thermal convection in a rectangular cavity with an extended submerged free-floating plate was studied experimentally and numerically.
It is shown that stable periodic motions occur when the plate floats near one of the heat exchangers. An increase in the distance between the plate and the heat exchanger disturbs the periodic motion and (at moderate Rayleigh numbers) leads to a pronounced asymmetry, when the plate spends most of the time near one of the walls, making rare transitions to the opposite wall. As the Rayleigh number increases, the plate restarts its motion from one edge of the cavity to the other, which however is always of irregular nature.
Frick P., Filimonov S., Gavrilov A., Popova E., Sukhanovskii A., Vasiliev A. Rayleigh-Benard convection with immersed floating body // Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 2024. V.979. A23.