Surface instability in a finite thickness fluid saturated porous layer

Abstract

The Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability at the interface between fluid and fluid saturated sparsely packed porous medium has been investigated making use of boundary layer approximation and Saffmann [8] boundary condition. An analytical solution for dispersion relation is obtained and is numerically evaluated for different values of the parameters. It is shown that RT instability can be controlled by a suitable choice of the thickness of porous layer, ratio of viscosities and the slip parameter.