Three-dimensional thermomagnetic convection in a cubic cavity in the presence of an external uniform magnetic field

Natural convection in magnetic fluids is studied in details in nonuniform magnetic fields. Here the main attention has been paid to the influence of a uniform magnetic field. It is shown that in a cubic cavity competition between gravity convection and thermomagnetic convection could lead to a complicated dependence of the heat flux through the cavity on the magnetic field: the increasing of the magnetic field could both enhance and depress the heat transfer. Numerical simulation has shown that the convective flow in the cube could have one-cell, two-cell or toroidal pattern. The competition between the gravitational and magnetic mechanisms of convection could lead to a new roll-type pattern with different topological and heat-transfer characteristics. Hence, the dependences of Ν(Gr) and Ν(Gr_m) can be very complicated with hysteresis in some cases. Figs 13, Refs 13.