NATURAL CONVECTION OF A BINARY MIXTURE IN A VERTICAL CLOSED ANNULUS

This article reports an analytical and numerical study of natural convection of a binary mixture within a vertical closed annulus. Neumann boundary conditions for temperature are applied to the vertical walls of the enclosure, while the short walls are insulated. The solutal buoyancy forces are assumed to be induced either by the imposition of constant fluxes of mass on the vertical walls (double-diffusive convection, a = 0) or by temperature gradients (Soret effect, a = 1). The governing parameters for the problem are the thermal Rayleigh number R_T, Prandtl number Pr, Lewis number Le, buoyancy ratio ϕ, aspect ratio A, constant a, and curvature parameter η. An analytical solution, based on the assumption of parallel flow over a large portion of enclosure, is derived. Numerical confirmation of the analytical results is also presented.