Maya Stevens California Polytechnic State University,

Convection in fluids has been studied in nonlinear dynamics for over a century. Henri Bénard did the first studies using whale oil in a single layer cell with a free upper surface [2]. He found that once a certain temperature gradient was reached, hexagonal convection cells would form. However, at higher temperatures, analysis of the motion of the fluids is not so easy. The goal of this project was to try to find, and then hopefully study, a time-dependent convection state of two immiscible fluids at relatively low temperature gradients. Multi-layer convection is found in many physical sciences. It can be found in geophysics, astrophysics, atmospheric physics and many other places [3]. Some specific examples would be the case of mantle convection, modeling stellar interiors, and the growth of encapsulated crystals [1]. Despite the various fields where multi-layer convections plays a large role, much about it is stil