Thermal convection in a nonlinear non-Newtonian magnetic fluid

We report theoretical and numerical results on thermal convection of a magnetic fluid in a viscoelastic carrier liquid. The viscoelastic properties are described by a general nonlinear viscoelastic model that contains as special cases the standard phenomenological constitutive equations for the stress tensor. In order to explore numerically the system we perform a truncated Galerkin expansion obtaining a generalized Lorenz system with ten modes. We find numerically that the system has stationary, periodic and chaotic regimes. We establish phase diagrams to identify the different dynamical regimes as a function of the Rayleigh number and the viscoelastic material parameters. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.