Numerical study of temperature and streamfunction patterns before full convection in geothermal cells of Bénard type

Numerical solution of steady state flow and heat transfer problem in scenarios type Bénard for Rayleigh numbers under the threshold of convection is presented. For this range of Rayleigh, patterns of temperature are horizontal lines regularly distributed throughout the domain, however, although Bénard cells do not emerge, two non-symmetric eddies of negligible flow velocity appear at the lateral boundaries. As Rayleigh increases in the range studied, eddies increases their sizes towards the center of the domain as well as their flow velocities. Simulations are carried out by the network simulation method.