The stationary modes of thermal convection of a binary mixture in connected channels of finite height were studied experimentally and theoretically. The effects of positive and negative thermal diffusion on the convection were examined. The ranges of parameters corresponding to the modes of soft and rigid initiation of convection were determined. Vertical distributions of the temperature and concentration fields were found for various values of the thermal diffusion parameter.Key words: binary fluid, connected channels, positive and negative thermal diffusion effects, separation of mixture into components.
Introduction.As is known, thermoconcentration convection occurs in a nonuniformly heated fluid mixture of complex composition in a gravity filed. In this case, density inhomogeneity arises from a competition of two convection mechanisms. The first mechanism has a thermogravitation nature and is due to the temperature dependence of the fluid density, and the second mechanism is due to the inhomogeneous concentration distribution of the heavy or light component in the mixture. The existence of two competing lifting forces leads to more complex behavior of the system than in the case of a homogeneous fluid. The forces are determined by the temperature and concentration coefficients of the density and by the temperature and concentration gradients. In most mixtures, the presence of temperature gradients is responsible for the occurrence of concentration gradients. (This phenomenon is called thermal diffusion.) In this case, free convective flow is influenced by the concentration inhomogeneity due to thermal diffusion.A horizontal layer of a binary mixture heated from below undergoes thermal diffusion separation along the vertical, which, in the case of a positive Soret effect with equilibrium instability promotes the development of monotonic perturbations [1]. In the case of anomalous thermal diffusion, where thermogravitation and anomalous thermal diffusion mechanisms of convection initiation counteract with each other, oscillatory mechanisms of development of equilibrium instability dominate.The purpose of the present work was to study stationary and oscillatory convective flows of a binary mixture in connected channels of finite height taking into account positive and negative thermal diffusion. Convection of one-component fluids and binary mixtures in connected channels has been studied previously [2,3]. In this case, thermal diffusion was ignored, and the source of concentration inhomogeneities was a linear vertical concentration profile of the heavy component on the boundaries of the channels.1. Formulation of the Problem. We consider two vertical channels of finite height with ideal heatconducting boundaries (Fig. 1). The channels have square section and are connected at the top and bottom by short bridges of the same profile. In the theoretical study, the influence of the bridges is ignored. The calculations are performed for the same set of geometrical parameters as in the experiment. Estimates show that, ...