Boiling Stability in a Porous Medium Heated From Below

Boiling in a porous layer heated from below at constant heat flux and cooled at constant temperature from the upper permeable surface leads below the critical flux of appearance of a vapor zone at the bottom in the approximation of dominated reservoirs to two solutions: a liquid-dominated one and a vapor-dominated one. The stability of these two situations is analyzed. The approach allows to understand the respective roles played by the gravitational instability, natural convection in the liquid upper layer, and movement of the interface between the two regions. Taking into account the confinement allows the comparison of these theoretical results with experimental results obtained in the laboratory.