Magneto-Thermosolutal Convection in Couple-Stress Fluid in a Porous Medium

Abstract

Thermosolutal instability of Veronis(1965) type in a couple-stress fluid in the presence of uniform vertical magnetic field in a porous medium is considered. Following the linearized stability theory and normal mode analysis, the paper mathematically established the condition for characterizing the oscillatory motions which may be neutral or unstable, for any arbitrary combination of free and rigid boundaries at the top and bottom of the fluid. It is proved analytically that all non-decaying slow motions starting from rest, in a couple-stress fluid of infinite horizontal extension and finite vertical depth in a porous medium, which is acted upon by uniform vertical magnetic field opposite to force field of gravity and a constant vertical adverse temperature gradient, are necessarily nonoscillatory, in the regime established, the result is important since the exact solutions of the problem investigated are not obtainable in closed form, for any arbitrary combination of free and rigid boundaries. A similar characterization theorem is also established for Stern (1960) type of configuration.