ANANLYSIS OF CONVECTIVE INSTABILITIES OF BINARY NANOFLUIDS

摘要

In this paper the thermal convective instabilities of a binary nanofluid is theoretically investigated. In order to analyze a binary nanofluid, an addition factor is proposed under linear stability theory which is applied to the stability analysis of normal fluid. The factor describes the effect of nanoparticles on the convective instability of a basefluid. The Soret effect which represents the thermal effect on mass diffusion in a binary mixture is also considered. The results show that the convective motion in a binary nanofluid sets in easily as the separation ratio (the influence of the Soret effect) increases and the initial concentration of solute decreases. It is interesting that there is a critical condition to make the binary nanofluid most unstable depending on the volume fraction of nanoparticle.