Thermal Convection at Low Rayleigh Number from Concentrated Sources in Porous Media

Abstract

A simple mathematical theory is proposed for the analysis of natural convective motion, at low Rayleigh number, from a concentrated source of heat in a fluid-saturated porous medium. The theory consists of retaining only the leading terms of series expansions of the dependent variables in terms of the Rayleigh number, is thus linear, and is valid only in the limit of small Rayleigh number. Based on fundamental results for a variety of isolated sources, superposition is used to provide solutions for situations of practical interest. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of sub-seabed disposal of nuclear waste.