CONVECTIVE INSTABILITY OF A HORIZONTAL LAYER OF FLUID WITH MAINTAINED CONCENTRATION OF DIFFUSIVE SUBSTANCE AND TEMPERATURE AT THE BOUNDARIES.

Abstract

The critical conditions for convective instability of a horizontal layer of fluid which has constant gradients of temperature and concentration of a diffusive substance are derived. The parameter determining the stability is a sum of two Rayleigh numbers, one based on the quantities determining the molecular heat transfer across the layer and the second based on those quantities determining the molecular transfer of the diffusive substance. For liquids, a strong stabilizing or destabilizing action of the diffusion results, depending on the sign of the gradient of the concentration of salts. When the gradient of salt concentration stabilizes, overstable oscillations are here found to provide the mechanism of the stabilization. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1963
Accession Number
AD0601614

Entities

People

  • Lionel Rintel
  • Paul Lieber

Organizations

  • University of California, Berkeley

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundaries
  • Diffusion
  • Energy Transfer
  • Heat Transfer
  • Instability
  • Oscillation
  • Temperature Gradients

Readers

  • Electrochemical Engineering/ Fuel Cell Technologies
  • Fluid Dynamics.