Convective stability of a nonisothermal fluid in a rotating horizontal coaxial gap

The thermal fluid convection in a coaxial horizontal gap uniformly rotating about its axis is investigated. The threshold above which convective flows are excited and the structure of these flows are studied. It is found that convection ensues irrespective of whether the inner or outer boundary temperature is higher. Convection manifests itself in the threshold development of rolls elongated in the direction of the rotation axis and is determined by two different mechanisms. If the layer is heated from outside, the centrifugal convection mechanism plays a leading part and the diameter of the convective rolls is comparable with the layer thickness. If the higher is the temperature of the inner boundary of the layer, the centrifugal inertia force has a stabilizing effect and convection development is related with the action of thermal vibrational mechanism. The latter is determined by gravity-generated oscillations of the nonisothermal fluid relative to the cavity. The wave number of the vibrational convective structures is several times smaller than under centrifugal convection. The results obtained broaden our understanding of thermal convection in systems rotating in external static force fields.