Stability of a micropolar fluid layer heated from below

The stability of a layer of micropolar fluid heated from below is studied employing a linear theory as well as an energy method. It is proved that the principle of exchange of stability holds and the critical Rayleigh number is obtained. It is observed that the micropolar fluid layer heated from below is more stable as compared with the classical viscous fluid. The energy method is then used to study the stability under finite disturbances. A variational method is applied to obtain the sharp stability limit. It is found that no subcritical instability region exists and the critical Rayleigh number as derived from the energy method is identical to that of the linear limit.