Numerical solutions to the Boussinesq equations containing a temperature-dependent viscosity are presented for the case of axisymmetric buoyancy-driven convective flow in a cylindrical cell. Two solutions, one with upflow and the other with downflow at the centre of the cell, were found for each set of boundary conditions that were considered. The existence of these two steady-state régimes was verified experimentally for the case of a cylindrical cell having rigid insulating lateral boundaries and isothermal top and bottom planes.Using a perturbation expansion it is also shown that only one of these solutions remains stable in the subcritical régime. This, however, seems to be confined to a very narrow range of Rayleigh numbers, beyond which, according to all the evidence presently at hand, both solutions are equally stable for those values of the Rayleigh and Prandtl numbers for which axisymmetric motions occur.Finally, certain fundamental differences between the problem considered here and that of thermal convection in a layer of infinite horizontal extent are briefly discussed.
