Rayleigh–Bénard instability in a vertical cylinder with a vertical magnetic field

Abstract

This paper presents two linear stability analyses for an electrically conducting liquid contained in a vertical cylinder with a thermally insulated vertical wall and with isothermal top and bottom walls. There is a steady uniform vertical magnetic field. The first linear stability analysis involves a hybrid approach which combines an analytical solution for the Hartmann layers adjacent to the top and bottom walls with a numerical solution for the rest of the liquid domain. The second linear stability analysis involves an asymptotic solution for large values of the Hartmann number. Numerically accurate predictions of the critical Rayleigh number can be obtained for Hartmann numbers from zero to infinity with the two solutions presented here and a previous numerical solution which gives accurate results for small values of the Hartmann number.