Planform selection in salt fingers

Abstract
The problem of small-aspect-ratio thermohaline convection is discussed in conditions appropriate to the salt-finger regime. Two-scale methods are employed to produce nonlinear coupled evolution equations for an arbitrary number of interacting roll solutions. These are solved in simple cases and it is shown that roll-type planforms are preferred over square cells throughout the range of validity of the analysis. The methods can be generalized to other double-diffusive convection problems.

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