Modeling the onset of thermosolutal convective instability in a non-Newtonian nanofluid-saturated porous medium layer

Abstract

The onset of double-diffusive (thermosolutal) convection in horizontal porous layer saturated with an incompressible couple stress nanofluid saturated is studied with thermal conductivity and viscosity dependent on the nanoparticle volume fraction. To represent the momentum equation for porous media, a modified Darcy-Maxwell nanofluid model incorporating the effects of Brownian motion and thermophoresis has been used. The thermal energy equation includes regular diffusion and cross diffusion (Soret thermo-diffusion and Dufour diffuso-thermal) terms. A linear stability analysis depends on the normal mode technique and the onset criterion for stationary and oscillatory convection is derived analytically. The nonlinear theory based on the representation of the Fourier series method is applied to capture the behavior of heat and mass transfer. It is found that the couple stress parameter enhances the stability of the system in both the stationary and oscillatory convection modes. The viscosity ratio and conductivity ratio both enhance heat and mass transfer. Transient Nusselt number is found to be oscillatory when time is small. However, when time becomes very large, all the three transient Nusselt number values approach to their steady state values.