S B Kozitskiy

Fine structure generation in a double-diffusive system.

Double-diffusive convection in a horizontally infinite layer of a unit height in a large-Rayleigh-number limit is considered. From linear stability analysis it is shown that the convection tends to have a form of traveling tall thin rolls with width about 30 times less than height. Amplitude equations of type for vertical variations of the amplitude of these rolls and mean values of diffusive components are derived. As a result of its numerical simulation it is shown that for a wide variety of parameters considered system have solutions, known as diffusive chaos, which can be useful for the explanation of fine structure generation in some important oceanographical systems like thermohaline staircases.