The Stability of Natural Convection in a Vertical Layer of Dielectric Fluid in the Presence of a Horizontal ac Electric Field

Linear stability theory is applied to examine the effect of a horizontal ac electric field on the stability of natural convection which occurs in a dielectric fluid between two parallel vertical plates maintained at different temperatures. The power series method is used to obtain the eigenvalue equation which is then solved numerically. It is shown that when the electrical Rayleigh number L (defined in the text) is less than about 2130 the electric field has no effect on the stability of natural convection, and that when L exceeds this value the electric field and the natural convection flow are coupled strongly and they exhibit a complicated but interesting effect on the stability of the system. A rough criterion is given for applicability of the power series method to the present problem.