The Onset of Convection in a Layered Porous Medium with Vertical Throughflow

An analytical investigation of the effect of vertical throughflow on the onset of convection in a composite porous medium consisting of two horizontal layers has been made. The cases of iso-flux and iso-temperature boundaries are both investigated. The critical Rayleigh number depends on a Péclet number $Q$ , a permeability ratio $K_{r}$ , a thermal conductivity ratio $k_{r}$ , and a depth ratio $delta $ . For the case of small $Q$ an approximate solution is obtained, which shows that in general throughflow has a stabilizing effect whose magnitude may be increased or decreased by the heterogeneity. This solution is supplemented by an asymptotic solution valid for large $Q.$