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Updated: Apr 20, 2026

Evolution of Staircase Structures in Diffusive Convection
Published on: September 5, 2018
Convection of colloidal suspensions stratified by thermodiffusion and gravity
1Perm State University, Department of Physics of Phase Transitions, 15 Bukirev str., 614990, Perm, Russia, bsmorodin@yandex.ru.
Abstract:
The convective stability thresholds and nonlinear evolution of convective rolls are numerically investigated in a plane horizontal layer of a colloidal suspension with positive separation ratio in the case of no-slip, impermeable horizontal boundaries. The characteristics of the steady and oscillatory patterns are analyzed under heating and gravity stratification. The standing and traveling waves are found as stable solutions within certain domains of parameters (on the plane of the Rayleigh and the Boltzmann numbers). Complex bifurcation and spatiotemporal properties are caused by the interaction of gravity sedimentation, Soret-induced gradients, and convective mixing of the fluid.
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