Natural convection of a water-fine particle suspension in a rectangular cell heated and cooled from opposing vertical walls: The effect of distribution of particle size

A water-fine particle suspension with a uniform initial temperature and concentration in a rectangular cell was heated from a vertical wall and cooled from the opposing vertical wall. The dispersed particles had a distribution in size. In this natural convection, many layers separated by almost-horizontal sharp interfaces were observed. In the beginning many layers appear, and each interface of the layers falls gradually with a constant velocity, and finally all layers vanish. To clarify this phenomenon, concentrations and mean diameters of the particles in each layer and temperature distributions were measured. Moreover, natural convection of the other suspension with particles which had a narrow size distribution was also investigated.