Instability onset of Rayleigh-Bénard convection for diatomic rarefied gases: Effects of molecular interaction models and flow parameters

Abstract

Studies on the stability of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in rarefied gases mainly focus on monatomic gases, whereas diatomic gases are the prevailing medium in actual flows. This paper conducts a study on the Rayleigh-Bénard convection stability of diatomic rarefied gases based on the Navier-Stokes (NS) equations modified with slip boundary conditions. We aim to elaborate the effects of different molecular interaction models and flow parameters (Knudsen number Kn, Froude number Fr, Prandtl number Pr, etc.). And several interesting phenomena have been discovered: (1) Compared with monatomic gases, the instability region of diatomic gases expands towards higher Knudsen numbers and smaller Froude numbers; (2) It is generally believed that increasing rarefaction leads to flow stabilization. However, we have found that in the case of small wave numbers within the scope of our research, the rarer the gas, the higher the growth rate, which contradicts traditional cognition; (3) Competition mechanism between buoyancy and gravity in the stability of Rayleigh-Bénard convection exists; (4) When considering the variations of Prandtl number and specific heat ratio with temperature, the relative deviation of the growth rate of the most unstable mode is significant.