Global stability for thermal convection in a fluid overlying a highly porous material

Abstract

This paper investigates the instability thresholds and global nonlinear stability bounds for thermal convection in a fluid overlying a highly porous material. A two-layer approach is adopted, where the Darcy–Brinkman equation is employed to describe the fluid flow in the porous medium. An excellent agreement is found between the linear instability and unconditional nonlinear stability thresholds, demonstrating that the linear theory accurately emulates the physics of the onset of convection.