Throughflow effects in the Rayleigh-Bénard convective instability problem

Abstract

The effect of vertical throughflow on the onset of convection in a fluid layer, between permeable horizontal boundaries, when heated uniformly from below, is re-examined analytically. It is shown that when the Péclet number Q is large in magnitude, the critical Rayleigh number Rc is proportional to Qn, where n = 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4, with a coefficient depending on the Prandtl number P, according to the types of boundaries. When the upper and lower boundaries are of different types, the effect of a small amount of throughflow in one direction is to decrease Rc. This is so when the throughflow is away from the more restrictive boundary. Contributions arise from the curvature of the basic temperature profile, and from the vertical transport of perturbation velocity and perturbation temperature. The decrease in Rc is small if P ∼ 1 but can be of significant size if P [Lt ] 1 or P [Gt ] 1.