Stabilization of flows through porous media

In this article, we study the motion of an incompressible homogeneous Newtonian fluid in a rigid porous medium of infinite extent. The fluid is bounded below by a fixed layer having an external source (with an injection rate b), and above by a free surface moving under the influence of gravity. The flow is governed by Darcy’s law. If b(c) = 0 for some c > 0 then the system admits (u, f) ≡ (c, c) as an equilibrium solution. We shall prove that the stability properties of this equilibrium are determined by the slope of b in c : The equilibrium is unstable if b′(c) < 0, whereas b′(c) > 0 implies exponential stability. Zhaoyong Feng: He is grateful to the DFG for financial support through the Graduiertenkolleg 615 “Interaction of Modeling, Computation Methods and Software Concepts for Scientific-Technological Problems”.