Rayleigh–Bénard convection in binary viscoelastic fluid

The onset of convection in a binary-viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid is investigated. The threshold for oscillatory convection is calculated. It is shown that the critical oscillation frequency may differ by several orders of magnitude on varying separation ratio and Deborah number. The results suggest that binary fluid aspects may not be discarded when studying thermal convection in polymeric solutions.