Stability of natural convection in a heated vertical corner

Edwards, Sean M ORCID: 0000-0001-5011-4688 and Hewitt, Richard E (2023) Stability of natural convection in a heated vertical corner. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER, 210. p. 124177.

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Abstract

The spatial stability of three-dimensional non-parallel natural convection in a uniformly-heated vertical corner is examined for the first time. Two self-similar steady base flows are determined, which are distinguished by their behaviour far from the corner. The first solution (A) reduces to the flow induced by a heated semi-infinite vertical plate, with a crossflow component that is driven by the entrainment into the corner. The second solution (B) is new and in contrast has a crossflow that increases linearly with the spanwise coordinate. In both solutions, the crossflow is directed towards the corner, being driven by the so-called `chimney effect’. By adopting a PSE approach, we show that the computed base flows become unstable to viscous modes at sufficiently large Grashof numbers. In the case of solution A, the eigenmodes that initially dominate are well approximated by the two-dimensional stability problem for the boundary layer over a heated vertical plate. However, further downstream these modes are later overcome by modes that are corner-specific (and cannot be captured by a simpler planar far-field stability problem).

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Corner boundary -layers, Parabolised stability equations, Natural convection, Boundary -region equations, Fluid mechanics
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Physical Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	17 Apr 2023 10:45
Last Modified:	28 May 2023 10:32
DOI:	10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2023.124177
Open Access URL:	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/...
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3169617