Onset of Convection with Internal Heating in a Porous Medium Saturated by a Nanofluid

Linear stability analysis was applied to the onset of convection due to internal heating in a porous medium saturated by a nanofluid. A model in which the effects of thermophoresis and Brownian motion are taken into account is employed. We utilized more realistic boundary conditions than in the previous work on this subject; now the nanofluid particle fraction is allowed to adapt to the temperature profile induced by the internal heating, subject to the requirement that there is zero perturbation flux across a boundary. The results show that the presence of the nanofluid particles leads to increased instability of the system. We identified two combinations of dimensionless parameters that are the major controllers of convection instability in the layer.