Upgrading the Experimental Capabilities of the Core Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at UCLA

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With this award, researchers in UCLA's "SpinLab" will upgrade all the essential equipment in our world-unique geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory. These upgraded systems will allow the reseacher and his students to expand the experiments they carry out in order to better understand flows occurring in Earth's molten metal core that generate our planetary magnetic field. These upgrades will also provide students in the lab with training in the design and operation of leading edge laboratory systems. This award will also promote the continued expansion of the successful science outreach efforts, most recently developing new do-it-yourself experimental STEAM tools that can be used in classrooms with students of all ages.This award will allow the researchers to upgrade the capabilities of this world-unique experimental systems that simulate convection in Earth's core. Through ultrasonic Doppler techniques and stereoscopic laser velocimetry measurements, these enhancements will allows them to quantify new aspects of the flow fields that develop in the lab experiments (e.g., 2D velocity, vorticity and helicity maps), and to explore new experimental geometries that have not been previously interrogated. Further, the lab will update the heating and cooling systems, to produce even more strongly turbulent convective flows relevant to planetary (and stellar) conditions. These upgrades will allow the lab to conduct the next stage of experiments and provide bridges between geodynamo models and advanced models of planetary core turbulence.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.