Stability of Natural Convection in Superposed Fluid and Porous Layers Using Integral Transforms

A stability analysis of thermal natural convection in superposed fluid and porous layers is carried out. The two-layer system is described using a one-domain formulation, and the eigenvalue problem resulting from the stability analysis is solved using the generalized integral transform technique (GITT). The numerical results confirm that the onset of convection can have a bimodal nature depending on the depth ratio. The influence of the dimensionless permeability and thermal diffusivity ratio are investigated.