The Effect of Magnetic Field Dependent Viscosity on Thermosolutal Convection in a Ferromagnetic Fluid Saturating a Porous Medium

The effect of magnetic field dependent viscosity on thermosolutal convection in a ferromagnetic fluid saturating a porous medium is considered for a fluid layer heated and soluted from below in the presence of uniform magnetic field. Using linearized stability theory and normal mode analysis, an exact solution is obtained for the case of two free boundaries. For case of stationary convection, medium permeability has a destabilizing effect, whereas a stable solute gradient and magnetic field dependent viscosity have a stabilizing effect on the system. In the absence of magnetic field dependent viscosity, the destabilizing effect of non-buoyancy magnetization is depicted but in the presence of magnetic field dependent viscosity non-buoyancy magnetization may have a destabilizing or stabilizing effect on the onset of instability. The critical wave number and the critical magnetic thermal Rayleigh number for the onset of instability are also determined numerically for sufficiently large values of buoyancy magnetization parameter M₁ and the results are depicted graphically. The principle of exchange of stabilities is found to hold true for the ferromagnetic fluid saturating a porous medium heated from below in the absence of stable solute gradient. The oscillatory modes are introduced due to the presence of the stable solute gradient, which were non-existent in its absence. A sufficient condition for the non-existence of overstability is also obtained. The paper also reaffirms the qualitative findings of earlier investigations which are, in fact, limiting cases of the present study.