On the Effect of Anisotropy on the Stability of Convection in Rotating Porous Media

We investigate natural convection in an anisotropic porous layer subjected to centrifugal body forces. The Darcy model (including centrifugal and permeability anisotropy effects) is used to describe the flow and a modified energy equation (including the effects of thermal anisotropy) is used in the current analysis. The linear stability theory is used to evaluate the critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection in the presence of thermal and mechanical anisotropy. It is found that the convection is stabilized when the thermal anisotropy ratio (which is a function of the thermal and mechanical anisotropy parameters) is increased in magnitude.