Effect of Horizontal Alternating Current Electric Field on the Stability of Natural Convection in a Dielectric Fluid Saturated Vertical Porous Layer

Abstract

The stability of natural convection in a dielectric fluid-saturated vertical porous layer in the presence of a uniform horizontal AC electric field is investigated. The flow in the porous medium is governed by Brinkman–Wooding-extended-Darcy equation with fluid viscosity different from effective viscosity. The resulting generalized eigenvalue problem is solved numerically using the Chebyshev collocation method. The critical Grashof number Gc, the critical wave number ac, and the critical wave speed cc are computed for a wide range of Prandtl number Pr, Darcy number Da, the ratio of effective viscosity to the fluid viscosity Λ, and AC electric Rayleigh number Rea. Interestingly, the value of Prandtl number at which the transition from stationary to traveling-wave mode takes place is found to be independent of Rea. The interconnectedness of the Darcy number and the Prandtl number on the nature of modes of instability is clearly delineated and found that increasing in Da and Rea is to destabilize the system. The ratio of viscosities Λ shows stabilizing effect on the system at the stationary mode, but to the contrary, it exhibits a dual behavior once the instability is via traveling-wave mode. Besides, the value of Pr at which transition occurs from stationary to traveling-wave mode instability increases with decreasing Λ. The behavior of secondary flows is discussed in detail for values of physical parameters at which transition from stationary to traveling-wave mode takes place.