The objective of this project is the study of states that lead to turbulence in buoyancy-driven flows. The competition between dissipation (viscosity or conduction) and forces caused by gradients of thermodynamic variables (temperature or concentration) drives the system away from equilibrium and creates spatial and temporal patterns (bifurcations). Attention is focused on two classes of two-component systems: fluid-saturated packed beds and non-reacting binary fluids. Driven dissipative two-component fluid systems are most frequently encountered in nature or in modern technological applications of the physical and chemical sciences and are associated with energy production and transport. The investigation hinges on the assumption of two-dimensional models of convection. Such models are not only simple, they are realistic as well. The project consists of two tasks: (1) studying the fundamentals of fluid convection in coarse packed beds by performing stability analysis (Problem interstitial circulation on a parallel computer (Problem numerically investigating onset and pattern formation during natural convection in thin annuli filled with mixtures of binary fluids (Problem
