In this study, the convective instability in porous media during solidification is analyzed using the linear stability thcory. The governing equation in the porous media is based on the Darcy's equation. The present predictions for the onset of convection recover the results of convective instability in packed beds with through flow for large Peclet number.Solidification of porous media has its applications in engineering practices with phase change, such as materials processing, thermal energy storage, and so on. When a pure melt in porous media is solidified from above, thermal convection can be induced by an unstable density profile in the porous media under a gravitational field. Convective instability problems during solidification of a liquid have been studied extensively, while those of porous media have received less attention. Recent studies (Karcher and Miiller, 1995: Mackie et al., 1999) investigated the Rayleigh-Benard stability problem with solidification of porous media. Smith (1988) examined the onset of convection driven by the thermal gradient under the solidifying interface during directional solidification of a pure liquid. whereas the present study is concerned with that of porous media.
Governing equationsThe porous media saturated with a pure liquid is solidified downward in a semi-infinite region, as shown in Figure I . The coordinate system is attached to the planar interface that is moving at the constant velocity V,,. Under the assumption that the thermophysical properties of the liquid phase and the porous material. such as heat capacity and thermal conductivity, are the same, the governing equations are given as followsFor the solid luyer
For thc porous niediuwhere 7 denotes the temperature, / the time, Z thc vertical coordinate, U the velocity. and P thc pressure. N denotes the thermal diffusivity, p the viscosity, K the permeability. p the density. ,G the thermal expansion coefficient, and g the gravity acceleration. The subscript S and L represent the solid and liquid quantitics, respectively. T,, denotes the reference temperature and e, the unit vector in the Z-direction. Equation 3 is the Darcy's equation, which is undcr the Boussincsq approximation. The density change in thc liquid can induce buoyancy-driven convection. In the present study. solidification shrinkage is neglected, and the densities of the