Onset of convection in a porous mantle (Q1093457)

The problem of thermal instability in a fluid saturated porous spherical shell heated internally, due to uniform internal heat sources and in equilibrium under its own radial gravitational field is studied theoretically. A general disturbance is analysed into modes in terms of spherical harmonics of various orders, l, for different values of the thickness of the mantle and the criteria for the onset of convection for the first fifteen modes is obtained in four different cases when the outer and inner bounding surfaces are either impermeable or permeable. It is shown that as the thickness of the shell decreases, the pattern of convection which sets in at marginal stability shifts progressively to harmonics of higher order for all the three cases except when both the bounding surfaces are permeable, in which case the onset of convection occurs at a harmonic of order 1. A comparison of some representative results of these cases is made with that of continuous fluid shell with rigid or free boundary surfaces. The neutral stability plots for various thickness of the mantle, for five different models of the mantle, are plotted for the different types of boundary surfaces.