SORET INSTABILITY IN A VERTICAL BRINKMAN POROUS ENCLOSURE

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical and numerical study of the influence of the Soret effect on the onset of convection in a vertical porous layer subject to uniform heat fluxes along the vertical walls. In the formulation of the problem use is made of the Brinkman-extended Darcy model, which is relevant to sparsely packed porous media. The analysis deals with the particular situation where the buoyancy forces induced by the thermal and solutal forces are opposing and of equal intensity. For this situation an equilibrium solution, corresponding to the rest state, is possible.