Convective Flow in an Aquifer Layer

Authors

Dambaru Bhatta, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Daniel N. Riahi, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-8-2017

Abstract

Here, we investigate weakly nonlinear hydrothermal two-dimensional convective flow in a horizontal aquifer layer with horizontal isothermal and rigid boundaries. We treat such a layer as a porous medium, where Darcy’s law holds, subjected to the conditions that the porous layer’s permeability and the thermal conductivity are variable in the vertical direction. This analysis is restricted to the case that the subsequent hydraulic resistivity and diffusivity have a small rate of change with respect to the vertical variable. Applying the weakly nonlinear approach, we derive various order systems and express their solutions. The solutions for convective flow quantities such as vertical velocity and the temperature that arise as the Rayleigh number exceeds its critical value are computed and presented in graphical form.

Comments

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Recommended Citation

Bhatta, Dambaru, and Daniel Riahi. 2017. "Convective Flow in an Aquifer Layer" Fluids 2, no. 4: 52. https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids2040052

Publication Title

Fluids

DOI

10.3390/fluids2040052