EFFECT OF THERMAL RADIATION ON THE STABILITY OF NATURAL CONVECTION IN VERTICAL SLOTS

The stability of natural convection of a radiating viscous fluid in a vertical nar row slot having isothermal side walls of different temperatures is investigated in the conduction regime. The effects of radiation on the base flow temperature and velocity distributions are demonstrated. The linear stability theory is applied and the resulting eigenvalue problem is solved numerically by spectral methods using the Legendre- collocation scheme. It is shown that the flow becomes more stable in the presence of radiation.