Effect of magnetic field dependent viscosity on ferroconvection in the presence of dust particles

This paper deals with the theoretical investigation of the effect of magnetic field dependent (MFD) viscosity on the thermal convection in a ferromagnetic fluid in the presence of dust particles. For a flat ferromagnetic fluid layer contained between two free boundaries, the exact solution is obtained using a linear stability analysis and a normal mode analysis method. For the case of stationary convection, dust particles always have a destabilizing effect, whereas the MFD viscosity has a stabilizing effect on the onset of convection. In the absence of MFD viscosity, the destabilizing effect of magnetization is depicted but in the presence of MFD viscosity, non-buoyancy magnetization may have a destabilizing or a stabilizing effect on the onset of convection. The critical wave number and critical magnetic thermal Rayleigh number for the onset of stationary convection are also determined numerically for sufficiently large values of buoyancy magnetization parameter M ₁. Graphs have been plotted by giving numerical values to the parameters to depict the stability characteristics. It is observed that the critical magnetic thermal Rayleigh number is reduced solely because the heat capacity of clean fluid is supplemented by that of the dust particles. The principle of exchange of stabilities is found to hold true for the ferromagnetic fluid heated from below in the absence of dust particles. The oscillatory modes are introduced due to the presence of the dust particles, which were non-existent in their absence. A sufficient condition for the non-existence of overstability is also obtained.