Soret-driven thermosolutal convection in a vertical enclosure

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the Soret effect on natural convection in a vertical cavity filled with a binary liquid. The two vertical walls of the cavity are subject to constant fluxes of heat while the two horizontal ones are adiabatic. The analysis deals with the particular situation where the buoyancy forces induced by the thermal and solutal effects are opposing each other and of equal intensity. In the limit of tall enclosures an analytical model is derived on the basis of a parallel flow approximation. The study is completed by a numerical solution of the full governing equations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.