Onset of Natural Convection in a Porous Layer Confined by an Elliptic or Semi-Elliptic Box Using the Ritz Method

Abstract

Using an efficient Ritz method, the thermoconvective stability of a bottom-heated porous layer in vertical elliptic and semi-elliptic enclosures with adiabatic side walls is studied. The stability mosaics for the critical Rayleigh number and the preferred modes are determined for various aspect ratios.