SINOPSIS

We present a theoretical and numerical study on the natural convection in a rectangular slender inclined cavity. Its longest side is heated from below and tilted an angle a with respect to the gravity vector. For any not vertical position, a counterflow arises for arbitrarily small temperature difference. The dependence of the unicellular basic flow and the heat transfer regimes on for the Rayleigh number, the Prandlt number, the tilt angle and the height to length aspect ratio is considered. The onset of transversal and longitudinal instabilities in the core region of the cavity is investigated with the linear stability analysis of the mean parallel flow. The effect of the finite size of the cavity on the secondary flow and on the heat transfer is studied by numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes and energy equation in the two-dimensional closed geometry.