Study of natural convective flows with unstable temperature stratification

Flow regimes developing under unstable thermal stratification are studied by analyzing flows in inclined channels heated from the bottom. Regularized Oberbeck–Boussinesq equations written in terms of velocity and pressure are solved by the finite-element method with the software package JoinCAD\FEM. The resulting numerical solutions describe two- and three-dimensional flows in an inclined channel with the end faces held at different temperatures. It is found that coherent structures develop depending on the inclination. The intensity of the convective flows is maximal at a certain value of the inclination.