The Effect of Strong Heterogeneity and Strong Throughflow on the Onset of Convection in a Porous Medium: Periodic and Localized Variation

The effect of strong throughflow and strong heterogeneity on the onset of convection induced by a vertical density gradient in a saturated porous medium governed by Darcy’s law is investigated with the aid of a computer package. The general case, where there is heterogeneity in both the vertical and horizontal directions, and where there is heterogeneity in permeability, thermal conductivity, and applied temperature gradient, is considered. Previous work on the case of non-periodic global variation is now extended to the case of either periodic variation or localized variation.