ISSN Online: 2377-424X
ISBN Print: 0-89116-299-2
International Heat Transfer Conference 7
THERMOHALINE CONVECTION IN A FLUID SATURATED POROUS LAYER WITH LINEAR GRADIENTS
Abstract
The stability to infinitesimal disturbances of a fluid saturated porous layer containing linear opposing gradients of heat and salt with free horizontal boundaries held at fixed temperature and concentration, is studied. A necessary condition for direct and oscillatory modes is obtained. The growth rate of disturbances for fixed and variable wavenumbers is computed separately. In the case of fixed wave-numbers, it is found that there is a fairly close analogy between the present problem and that of viscous fluid and the effect of porous parameter is to increase the region of stability. However, in the case of variable wave-number, there is a marked difference between the two problems and it is found that the effect of porous parameter is to confine the optimum growth rate to salt-finger and diffusive regimes.