THE STRUCTURE OF (LINEARLY) STABLE DOUBLE-DIFFUSIVE FLOW PATTERNS IN A LATERALLY HEATED STRATIFIED LIQUID

Layered double diffusive flow patterns in a laterally heated stably stratified liquid are considered in a configuration which allows for steady states to exist. For the heat/salt system, these flows are characterized by the thermal and solutal Rayleigh numbers RaT and RaS, or equivalently by RaT and the buoyancy ratio Rp. The bifurcation structure of steady patterns with respect to RaT is computed for two cases: fixed RaS and fixed Rp. For the first case, results in N. Tsitverblit and E. Kit [Phys. Fluids A 5, 1062 (1993)], are computed and extended, and it is shown that many of the previously found flow patterns are unstable; only in a small interval of RaT, multiple (linearly) stable steady states exist. For the second case, the physical relevance of the unstable steady states with respect to the evolution of the flow toward a stable steady state is demonstrated. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.