Mono‐diffusive Hadley‐Prats flow in a horizontal porous layer subject to variable gravity and internal heat generation

Abstract

AbstractAnalysis of internal heated and gravity effect on the onset of Hadley‐Prats flow in a horizontal porous layer with inclined temperature gradients is investigated using the linear and nonlinear instability analysis. The transformed eigenvalue problem is evaluated numerically to find the eigenvalue, which is treated as a vertical thermal Rayleigh number (Rz). It is evaluated by applying shooting and Runge‐Kutta method. Also, the critical Rz is investigated for different parameters governing the flow. A theoretical study is made to understand the influence of gravity field on the mechanism of mono‐diffusive instability of Hadley‐Prats convection in a fluid saturated horizontal porous layer. Nonlinear stability is evaluated by using energy functional. The comparison between linear and nonlinear instability results are presented and it is noted that linear theory of instability may not be useful to capture the complete picture of stability and instabilities may arise before one attains the linear stability threshold. This subcritical instability region is identified between the linear and energy thresholds in the parameter space of the problem considered.