On the stability of convective motion caused by inhomogeneous internal heat sources

Abstract EN

The stability of a convective fluid motion caused by inhomogeneous heat sources in a tall vertical annulus is investigated in this paper.

Critical Grashof numbers are computed for different values of the ratio R of the internal to the external radii of the annulus, and Prandtl numbers for axisymmetric and asymmetric perturbations.

Stability increases as the inhomogeneity of the heat sources increases.

For strongly inhomogeneous heat sources, there is a transition from the axisymmetric to the asymmetric mode as the Prandtl number grows.