Overstability of a Viscoelastic Fluid Layer Oscillating in a Vertical Periodic Motion and Heated From Below

This Note examines the effect of vertical periodic motion on the stability characteristics of a viscoelastic fluid layer in a classical Benard geometry. Numerical solutions show that a resonant type behavior which enhances stability occurs at oscillation frequencies near the convective natural frequency of the viscoelastic fluid, while the effect of the periodic motion vanishes as the oscillation frequency gets very large.