Heat transfer in a vertically-layered porous medium heated from below

Abstract

Some studies already made have investigated the criterion for onset of convection and heat and mass flow distributions in a porous slab composed of horizontal layers of different materials. This paper reports a study of such criteria for the case where the slab is composed of vertically-aligned strata with different permeabilities and thermal conductivities. This has particular relevance to where blocks of different materials abut in a vertical plane, as well as the case of very narrow highly permeable vertical layers which represent vertical faults in a geological structure. Results indicate that permeability and/or thermal conductivity contrasts between layers can significantly affect the flow pattern and the spatial distribution of the surface heat flux. The concentration of flow in highly permeable ‘faults’ produces marked irregularities in the heat flow through the surface above them.