Abstract:
The stability of fluids in porous media subject to
various physical and geometrical conditions is studied
here. Criteria for the onset of convective motions are
given in terms of critical temperature gradients or heat
sources. The general method used involves the linearization
of the field equations about the hydrostatic solutions
and the reduction of the linear equations to an
appropriate linear eigenvalue problem for certain Positive
operators. Variational methods are then used to
approximate the minimum eigenvalues which yield the
stability criteria.
