Double-diffusive convection in an inclined fluid layer

The nonlinear double-diffusive convection in a Boussinesq fluid with stable constant vertical solute gradient, and bound by two differentially heated rigid inclined parallel plates is considered. The analysis was carried out by a Galerkin method for the cases when the angle of inclination was 0°, - 45° and + 45° (positive angle denotes heating from below, and negative angle denotes heating from above). The counter-rotating cells predicted by the linear theory merge into single cells with the same sense of rotation within a very short period of time even under slightly supercritical conditions. This is consistent with the experimental observations. Furthermore, as observed in the experiments, the evolution of instability is more rapid when heating is from above than when heating is from below. Our results for a salt-heat system are in excellent agreement with those based on the limiting case of Lewis number 0 and Schmidt number →.