Instabilities of convection patterns in a shear-thinning fluid between plates of finite conductivity.

Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a horizontal layer of a non-Newtonian fluid between slabs of arbitrary thickness and finite thermal conductivity is considered. The first part of the paper deals with the primary bifurcation and the relative stability of convective patterns at threshold. Weakly nonlinear analysis combined with Stuart-Landau equation is used.

Weakly nonlinear analysis of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a non-Newtonian fluid between plates of finite conductivity: Influence of shear-thinning effects.

Finite-amplitude thermal convection in a shear-thinning fluid layer between two horizontal plates of finite thermal conductivity is considered. Weakly nonlinear analysis is adopted as a first approach to investigate nonlinear effects. The rheological behavior of the fluid is described by the Carreau model.