Multiple Steady States in Laminar Rayleigh–Bénard Convection of Air

Abstract

In this article, we report on numerical simulations of laminar Rayleigh–Bénard convection of air in cuboids. We provide numerical evidence of the existence of multiple steady states when the aspect ratio of the cuboid is sufficiently large. In our simulations, the Rayleigh number is fixed at Ra=1.7×104. The gas in the cube is initially at rest but subject to random small-amplitude velocity perturbations and an adverse temperature gradient. When the flow domain is a cube, i.e., the aspect ratio is equal to unity, there is only one steady state. This state is characterized by the development of a single convective roll and by a symmetric normalized temperature profile with respect to the mid-height. On the contrary, when the aspect ratio is equal to 2, there are five different steady states. Only one of them exhibits a symmetric temperature profile and flow structure. The other four steady states are characterized by two-roll configurations and asymmetric temperature profiles.