Rayleigh-Taylor instability of an interface in a nonwettable porous medium

Abstract

The diffusion of vapor through the roof of an underground structure located beneath an aquifer is considered. In the process of evaporation, an interface between the upper water-saturated layer and the lower layer containing an air-vapor mixture is formed. A mathematical model of the evaporation process is proposed and a solution of the steady-state problem is found. It is shown that in the presence of capillary forces in the case of a nonwettable medium the solution is not unique. Using the normal mode method, it is shown that Rayleigh-Taylor instability of the interface can develop in the nonwettable porous medium. It is found that there are two scenarios of loss of stability corresponding to the occurrence of the most unstable wavenumber at zero and at infinity, respectively. It is shown that for zero wavenumber the stability limit is reached at the same time as the solution of the steady-state problem disappears.