𝑎,∗ 𝑏

• New hydrodynamic boundary condition which enables the simulation of the effects caused by rough boundaries.
• Performance of classical Rayleigh-Bénard stability analysis.
• Boundary roughness is important when transition from laminar to tubulent Flow in pipes is investigated, because for
smooth boundaries the linear stability analysis predicts infinitely stable Flow, Cotrell.
• In laminar flows, which are stratified, the effect of boundary roughness is usually negligigble.

Nield and Kuznetsov have shown thath laminar flows in such channels may be very sensitive to any
boundary roughness because in microchannels boundary roughness could occupy a significant portion
of the channel width.

Is the main mechanism responsible for triggering the instability that drives the flow.

• In this paper we investigate the effect of large boundary roughness on the onset of Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a
parallel-plate channel with rough boundaries.
• The two horizontal plates that bound the channel are impermeable and separated by a distance H.
• The classical Rayleigh-Bénard configuration is assumed: the lower boundary is held at a temperature 𝑇0 + ∆𝑇 and the
upper boundary is held at a temperature 𝑇0 .
• The roughness of the channel boundaries is considered nonnegligible, such that the two boundaries cannot be treated
as relatively smooth horizontal surfaces.
• The hydrodynamic and thermal boundary conditions may thus be expressed as follows:
• A new boundary condition is proposed to simulate the effect of the boundary roughness for the classical Rayleigh-
Bénard configuration with the roughness of the horizontal boundaries of the parallel-plate channel taken into account.
• The main results of this analysis are the following:

• The effect of Surface roughness on hydrodynamic instabilities is traditionally investigated in the framework of laminar-
turbulent transition, in which case Surface roughness affect transition by enhancing the magnitude of disturbances in
the Flow and affecting their growth rate.
• We have shown that in this case roughness can modify the dispersión relation and, as a consequence, the critical
values of the governinng parameter.