Viscous and Thermal Boundary Layers in Simulated Turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard Convection

We present the results from numerical simulations of three-dimensional, fully turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection for cylindrical cells of aspect ratio 1 (diameter = depth). We use experimentally realistic boundary conditions, Prandtl numbers of 0.4 and 0.7, and Rayleigh numbers between $10^5$ and $10^9$. We focus on the thermal and viscous boundary layers, and compute profiles and boundary layer thicknesses in a variety of ways. We find that the different methods can effect the results. We also compare our results to experiments and theory.