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Instability analysis of the flow between two parallel plates where the bottom
one coated with porous media

Article in Advances in Water Resources · June 2019

DOI: 10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.06.002

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 Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228

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Advances in Water Resources

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/advwatres

Instability analysis of the flow between two parallel plates where the
bottom one coated with porous media
Zhenxing Wu a, Parisa Mirbod b,∗
a
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, 13699, United States
b
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, 60607, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This study investigates the instability of pure Newtonian fluid flow between two parallel plates where the bottom
Coupled fluid-porous flow instability one coated with various porous media with permeability K and porosity 𝜀. We have applied normal modes to
Brinkman equation perturb the coupled flow system. Specifically, the effects of some dimensionless parameters such as depth ratio,
Stability margin
permeability parameter, and the porosity of the porous medium on the instability have been examined. We found
these parameters play a critical role in the instability. Depending on these parameters, instability is initiated and
dominated either by the fluid or by the porous region. In particular, we found that there are ranges of the depth
ratio and the permeability parameter for each value of the porous media porosity that affect the instability of
this coupled flow. We have also determined a new parameter which specifies the potential dominance and the
stability margin of each mode. To validate our calculations, we have also compared our results with the Orr–
Sommerfeld equation. In addition, we have examined three special extreme conditions to study the coupled flow
system in more detail.

1. Introduction
The fluid flow over and inside a porous media has been re-
ceived considerable attention during few decades because of its wide
range of applications in industry from biology to geophysical prob-
lems. For example, Battiato et al. (2010) studied the carbon nanotube
forests (CNTs) by investigating the bending profile of cylindrical ar-
rays; Weinbaum (1998) presented three different fundamental cellular
level transport models by considering the thin layer of specialized ma-
trix that cells produce at the surface of their plasmalemma membranes;
Ghisalberti and Nepf (2009) had experimentally examined Aquatic flow
over a submerged vegetation canopy. Gayev and Hunt (2007) had in-
vestigated rivers flooding over plains with vegetation.
Although thermal convection instability in the fluid-porous sys-
tem has been studied extensively (Nield, 1977; Chen and Chen, 1988;
Straughan, 2002; Thiele et al., 2009; Deepika and Narayana, 2015;
Deepika et al., 2017), the hydrodynamic instability problem of such
a system has been appreciated only in recent years. To the best of
the author’s knowledge, Chang et al. (2006) were the first to study
the Poiseuille flow instability problem in a fluid overlying a porous
medium. They employed Darcy’s law and the Navier–Stokes equation
as the governing equations in the fluid-porous system, i.e., the so-
called two-domain approach. They used the boundary conditions pro-
posed by Beavers and Joseph (1967), which was known to be accu-
rate in the studies of slow flow of a fluid passing over porous spheres.
They also used the Orr–Sommerfeld (Orszag, 1971) equation to formu-
late the eigenvalue problem and solved it based on the Chebyshev-Tau
method (Dongarra et al., 1996). After Chang’s pioneering work, many
researchers studied the instability problem in a fluid-porous geometry
considering different flow conditions, methodology, and boundary con-
ditions. For example, Samanta (2017) applied Chebyshev collocation
method (Dolapçi, 2004) to solve the Orr–Sommerfeld type eigenvalue
problem and used the no-slip upper wall condition into a slip bound-
ary condition. Deepu et al. (2015) presented the linear stability anal-
ysis of the Poiseuille flow in a fluid overlying a porous material with
anisotropic and inhomogeneous permeability. They found that the depth
ratio, the Darcy number, the anisotropy parameter, and the inhomo-
geneity factor have impact on the instability of the system.
In this study, we choose Brinkman equation (Brinkman, 1949) as
an alternative equation for Darcy’s law in the two-domain approach.
It is widely agreed that the Brinkman equation is accurate for highly
porosity materials (Battiato et al., 2010). In addition, there is a higher
order term (i.e., the viscous term) in the Brinkman equation which en-
ables to couple the porous medium and free fluid region in a straight-
forward manner. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume the continu-
ity of stress and velocity as a boundary condition along the interface
that also significantly reduce the analytical difficulties in the instability
analysis.

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: pmirbod@uic.edu (P. Mirbod).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.06.002
Received 10 July 2018; Received in revised form 21 March 2019; Accepted 5 June 2019
Available online 15 June 2019
0309-1708/Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Z. Wu and P. Mirbod Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228

where u = (u, v) represents the velocity throughout the channel, p is the

pressure, 𝜇 is the dynamic viscosity, and 𝜌 is the density of the fluid,
respectively.
In the porous medium region, the continuity and momentum
(Brinkman’s) equations can be given by
∇ ⋅ 𝒖𝒎 = 0 (2.3)

1 𝜕 𝒖𝒎 1 1 𝜇 𝜇
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of an incompressible flow driven by a pressure gra- + 𝒖𝒎 ⋅ ∇ 𝒖 𝒎 = − ∇ 𝑝 𝑚 + 𝑒 ∇ 2 𝒖𝒎 − 𝒖 (2.4)
dient dp/dx < 0 between two parallel plates where the bottom surface occupied ε 𝜕𝑡 ε2 𝜌 𝜌ε 𝜌𝐾 𝒎
by a porous medium with permeability K and porosity 𝜀. The subscript “m” represents the corresponding parameters in the
porous medium. Here, 𝜇 e is the effective viscosity which takes into ac-
count the slip at the interface between the porous and fluid together
This method has been applied by other researchers in the instability with the porosity. It should be noted that in our governing equations
analysis (Liu et al., 2008; Liu and Liu, 2009; Hill and Straughan, 2008; 𝜇 𝜇 2
the Laplacian term considered as 𝜌ε𝑒 ∇2 𝒖𝒎 . This is different from 𝜌ε ∇ 𝒖𝒎 ,
Hill and Straughan, 2009; Silin et al., 2011; Goyal et al., 2013; which has been used by the previous studies (Thiele et al., 2009; Hill and
Straughan and Harfash, 2013). In particular, the focus of this research is Straughan, 2008; Goyal et al., 2013; Lyubimova et al., 2016) where they
on examining the plane Poiseuille flow instability problem more broadly considered the impact of only porosity on the viscosity ratio. In order to
and quantifying the impact of the porous layer thickness and proper- generalize the governing equations in the present work, we considered
ties on the fluid-porous instability. Different from previous studies, the 𝜇
the Laplacian term as 𝜌ε𝑒 ∇2 𝒖𝒎 because we experimentally found that the
present work considers a model to describe a wider parameter space
ratio between the effective viscosity and the fluid viscosity depends on
which helps us to find different behaviors of the system instability. Un-
both porosity and the complex structures of porous media. This has been
like the study by Liu et al. (2008), the convective term (i.e., u · ∇u) in
discussed in detail by Wu and Mirbod (2018). Although the effective
the momentum equation for the porous region has been considered in
viscosity has long been discussed (Koplik et al., 1983), the only widely
our analysis. The Laplacian term of our governing equations has also
agreed conclusion of the previous studies is that for the high porosity
been defined based on our experimental measurements (Wu and Mir-
material effective viscosity is the same as the dynamic viscosity of the
bod, 2018) which is different from the corresponding one in the previ-
fluid, i.e. as 𝜀 → 1, 𝜇 e → 𝜇.
ous studies (Thiele et al., 2009; Hill and Straughan, 2008; Goyal et al.,
The boundary conditions in this study by considering the continuity
2013; Lyubimova et al., 2016), see Section 2.1 for more details. Further-
of velocity profiles and the stress tensors at the interface as well as no-
more, we determine a new dimensionless parameter which specifies the
slip boundary conditions on the two plates can be expressed as
potential dominance of the coupled system instability depending on the
At y = 2L,
porosity of the porous media. We also analyze the behavior of the spe-
cial extreme cases on the instability. To the best of our knowledge, none 𝑢 = 0, 𝑣 = 0 (2.5)
of these analyses have been attempted before. To validate our code, we
At y = −2H,
used Orr–Sommerfeld (Orszag, 1971) and also compared our study with
the previous results (Liu et al., 2008; Hill and Straughan, 2008). We 𝑢𝑚 = 0, 𝑣𝑚 = 0 (2.6)
expect these results will be a step forward in investigating the hydro-
At y = 0,
dynamic instability problem of Newtonian fluids overlying porous sur-
faces. This model reveals the relation between the gap of the two parallel 𝑢 = 𝑢𝑚 , 𝑣 = 𝑣𝑚 (2.7)
plates, the physical properties, and the thickness of a permeable layer to
the fluid passing over it which is a first step towards further analyzing ( ) ( )
𝜕𝑢 𝜕𝑣 𝜇𝑒 𝜕 𝑢𝑚 𝜕 𝑣𝑚
the instability of complex fluids flows over porous surfaces. 𝜇 + = + (2.8)
𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑥 ε 𝜕𝑦 𝜕𝑥
( ) ( )
𝜕𝑣 2 𝜇𝑒 𝜕 𝑣𝑚
2. Problem formulation 𝑝 − 2𝜇 = 𝑝𝑚 − (2.9)
𝜕𝑦 ε 𝜕𝑦
We consider a fully viscous, incompressible flow driven by a pres-
2.2. The basic (steady-state) flow
sure gradient dp/dx < 0 between two parallel plates as shown in Fig. 1.
The bottom plate is covered with a rigid, homogenous, isotropic porous
To study the relative magnitudes of velocity we normalized the
medium with permeability K and porosity 𝜀. The gap between the two
length in both fluid and porous regions by L and H, respectively. Also,
plates is 2L+2H, where 2H is the thickness of a porous medium and 2L is
a constant pressure gradient is considered in the x-direction. Therefore,
the height of the free-flow region. It should be noted that the thickness
the governing equations and boundary conditions in the basic flow can
2L and 2H are defined for the simplicity of the numerical calculations
be expressed as
which will be explained in detail in Section 3. The coordinate axis x and
y are directed along and normal to the flow, respectively and the origin ∇2 𝒖̃ = 𝐶 (2.10)
is located at the fluid-porous interface.
𝑀 2
∇ 𝒖̃ 𝒎 − 𝛼 2 𝒖̃ 𝒎 = 𝐶∕𝑑 2 (2.11)
ε
2.1. Governing equations
𝜇𝑒 2 𝐻 2 𝐿
𝑀= , 𝛼 = , 𝑑= (2.12)
The flow in the free-flow region using the continuity and the incom- 𝜇 𝐾 𝐻
pressible Navier–Stokes equations can be defined as
At y = 2,
∇⋅𝒖=0 (2.1) 𝑢̃ = 0 (2.13)
At y = −2,
𝜕𝒖 1 𝜇
+ 𝒖 ⋅ ∇𝒖 = − ∇𝑝 + ∇2 𝒖 (2.2) 𝑢̃ 𝑚 = 0 (2.14)
𝜕𝑡 𝜌 𝜌

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Z. Wu and P. Mirbod Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228

𝜇Vm /H in the porous region. The dimensionless and linearized form of

equations are obtained as
𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝜕 𝑣̄
+ =0 (2.17)
𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦
( )
𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝑑𝑈 𝜕 𝑝̄
𝑅𝑒 +𝑈 + 𝑣̄ =− + ∇2 𝑢̄ (2.18)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝑑𝑦 𝜕𝑥
( ) 𝜕 𝑝̄
𝜕 𝑣̄ 𝜕 𝑣̄
𝑅𝑒 +𝑈 =− + ∇2 𝑣̄ (2.19)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑥 𝜕𝑦

𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝑚 𝜕 𝑣̄
+ 𝑚 =0 (2.20)
𝜕 𝑥𝑚 𝜕 𝑦𝑚

[ ( )]
1 𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝑚 1 𝜕 𝑢̄ 𝑑 𝑈𝑚 𝜕 𝑝̄ 𝑀 2
𝑅𝑒𝑚 + 𝑈𝑚 𝑚 + 𝑣̄ 𝑚 =− 𝑚 + ∇ 𝑢̄ 𝑚 − 𝛼 2 𝑢̄ 𝑚
𝜀 𝜕 𝑡𝑚 𝜀2 𝜕 𝑥𝑚 𝑑 𝑦𝑚 𝜕 𝑥𝑚 𝜀
(2.21)

( )
1 𝜕 𝑣̄ 𝑚 1 𝜕 𝑣̄ 𝜕 𝑝̄𝑚 𝑀 2
Fig. 2. Variations of normalized basic flow velocity profiles for (a) = 0.1, 0.2, 𝑅𝑒𝑚 + 𝑈𝑚 𝑚 =− + ∇ 𝑣̄ 𝑚 − 𝛼 2 𝑣̄ 𝑚 (2.22)
0.5 at M = 1, 𝛼 = 50, 𝜀 = 0.8; (b) 𝛼 = 25, 50, 100 at M = 1, d = 0.1, 𝜀 = 0.8. 𝜀 𝜕 𝑡𝑚 𝜀2 𝜕 𝑥𝑚 𝜕 𝑦𝑚 𝜀
where Re = 𝜌VL/𝜇 is the Reynolds number in the fluid region and
Rem = 𝜌Vm H/𝜇, is the Reynolds number inside the porous layer. 𝑈 = 𝑢̃ ∕𝑉
At y = 0,
and 𝑈𝑚 = 𝑢̃ 𝑚 ∕𝑉𝑚 are the normalized basic flow velocity profile in the
𝑢̃ = 𝑢̃ 𝑚 (2.15) fluid and porous region, respectively. It should be noted that to explic-
itly separating the free-flow and the porous region, we denoted the time
and the coordinates in the porous region as tm , xm , and ym . Then, the
𝜕 𝑢̃ 𝑀 𝜕 𝑢̃ 𝑚
=𝑑 (2.16) normal modes can be introduced as
𝜕𝑦 ε 𝜕𝑦
( 𝑢̄ , 𝑣̄ , 𝑝̄) = [𝑢̄ (𝑦), 𝑣̄ (𝑦), 𝑝̄(𝑦)]𝑒𝑥𝑝(𝑖𝑘(𝑥 − 𝜆𝑡)) (2.23)
where 𝒖̃ =(𝑢̃ , 0) and 𝒖̃ 𝒎 = (𝑢̃ 𝑚 , 0) are the velocity of the basic state flow.
𝐿2 𝜕𝑝
Here, 𝐶 = 𝜇 𝜕𝑥
is a constant value based on the pressure gradient in the [ ( ) ( ) ( )] ( ))
basic state, the property of porous medium, and the system geometry. M (𝑢̄ 𝑚 , 𝑣̄ 𝑚 , 𝑝̄𝑚 ) = 𝑢̄ 𝑚 𝑦𝑚 , 𝑣̄ 𝑚 𝑦𝑚 , 𝑝̄𝑚 𝑦𝑚 𝑒𝑥𝑝(𝑖𝑘𝑚 𝑥𝑚 − 𝜆𝑚 𝑡𝑚 (2.24)
is the viscosity ratio, 𝛼 is the permeability parameter and d is the length where k and km are the dimensionless wavenumbers for the two
ratio. regions, 𝜆 and 𝜆m are complex parameters whose real part is the
Fig. 2 shows the results of the normalized basic flow velocity profiles propagation velocity of the perturbation, and their imaginary part
for different 𝛼, d values and specific values of M = 1 and 𝜀 = 0.8. The ve- determines the amplification or attenuation of the perturbation de-
locity profiles in the free-fluid region and the porous region are both pending on their sign (Silin et al., 2011). In addition, k = dkm ,
normalized by V (the maximum velocity 𝑢̃ (𝑦)) in the free-fluid region. 𝑉
𝑅𝑒𝑚 = 𝑉𝑚 𝑑 𝑅𝑒, and 𝜆Re = d𝜆m Rem . Therefore, by considering = d/dy,
In addition, the length in the free-fluid region and in the porous region
D = d /dy2 , Dm = d/dym , Dm 2 = d2 /dym 2 , U′ = dU/dy, 𝑈𝑚 ′ = 𝑑 𝑈𝑚 ∕𝑑 𝑦𝑚 ,
2 2
has been normalized by L and H, respectively. It can be seen that both
one can define the normal modes equations and boundary conditions as
the length ratio d and the permeability parameter 𝛼 have a strong im-
pact on the basic flow velocity profiles. Fig. 2(a) shows that for 𝛼 = 50
𝑖𝑘𝑢̄ + 𝐷𝑣̄ = 0 (2.25)
as the length ratio d increases, the slip velocity at the fluid-porous in-
terface decreases which consequently causes the boundary condition at ( ) ( )
the interface goes close to no-slip condition. In other words, the inter- 𝑅𝑒 −𝑖𝑘𝜆𝑢̄ + 𝑈 𝑖𝑘𝑢̄ + 𝑣̄ 𝑈 ′ = −𝑖𝑘𝑝̄ + 𝐷2 − 𝑘2 𝑢̄ (2.26)
face behaves as an impermeable surface. This is because as the length
ratio increases, the effect of porous medium on the system becomes less ( )
𝑅𝑒(−𝑖𝑘𝜆𝑣̄ + 𝑈 𝑖𝑘𝑣̄) = −𝐷𝑝̄ + 𝐷2 − 𝑘2 𝑣̄ (2.27)
significant. The same procedure can be seen in Fig. 2(b) when the per-
meability parameter 𝛼 increases, the core velocity profile is parabolic
except near the interface, where the velocity drops to very small val- 𝑖𝑘𝑢̄ 𝑚 + 𝐷𝑚 𝑣̄ 𝑚 = 0 (2.28)
ues. In other words, for large values of 𝛼, when the permeability of the
porous material becomes small, the velocity profile inside the porous ( )
𝑖𝑘 1
layer shows the characteristic of plug flow, except near the free fluid- 𝑅𝑒𝑚 − 𝜀𝑚 𝜆𝑚 𝑢̄ 𝑚 + 𝑈 𝑖𝑘 𝑢̄ + 𝜀12 𝑣̄ 𝑚 𝑈 ′ 𝑚
𝜀2 𝑚 𝑚( 𝑚
=
) (2.29)
porous medium interface. Fig. 2(b) also shows that for d = 0.1, as 𝛼 in- −𝑖𝑘𝑚 𝑝̄𝑚 + 𝑀
𝜀
𝐷𝑚 2 − 𝑘𝑚 2 𝑢̄ 𝑚 − 𝛼 2 𝑢̄ 𝑚
creases, the porous medium approaches to an impermeable solid surface; ( )
𝑖𝑘 1
thus, the no-slip condition will be achieved eventually. Similar results 𝑅𝑒𝑚 − 𝜀𝑚 𝜆𝑚 𝑣̄ 𝑚 + 𝑈 𝑖𝑘 𝑣̄
𝜀2 (𝑚 𝑚 𝑚
=
) (2.30)
have been reported in our previous work (Mirbod et al., 2017). −𝐷𝑚 𝑝̄𝑚 + 𝑀𝜀
𝐷 𝑚
2
− 𝑘 𝑚 𝑣̄ 𝑚
2
− 𝛼 2 𝑣̄ 𝑚

At y = 2,
2.3. Linear stability analysis
𝑢̄ = 0, 𝑣̄ = 0 (2.31)
To study the linear stability of this problem, we derived the per-
At y = −2,
turbation equations by introducing the perturbed forms 𝑢 = 𝑢̃ + 𝑢̄ , 𝑣 =
𝑣̃ + 𝑣̄ , 𝑝 = 𝑝̃ + 𝑝̄, 𝑢𝑚 = 𝑢̃ 𝑚 + 𝑢̄ 𝑚 , 𝑣𝑚 = 𝑣̃𝑚 + 𝑣̄ 𝑚 , 𝑝𝑚 = 𝑝̃𝑚 + 𝑝̄𝑚 . We then non- 𝑢̄ 𝑚 = 0, 𝑣̄ 𝑚 = 0 (2.32)
dimensionalized the equations with the length, velocity, time, and pres-
At y = 0,
sure in the both fluid and porous regions. These parameters are L, V,
L/V, 𝜇V/L in the fluid section and H, Vm (the maximum of 𝑢̃ 𝑚 (𝑦)), H/Vm , 𝑢̄ = 𝑢̄ 𝑚 , 𝑣̄ = 𝑣̄ 𝑚 (2.33)

223
Z. Wu and P. Mirbod Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228

Table 1
The leading eigenvalues for N = 50, 60, 70, 80.

Case 1 Case 2
N 𝜆r 𝜆i 𝜆r 𝜆i

50 0.72103 0.060478 0.39569 0.15306

60 0.72112 0.060133 0.39567 0.15306
70 0.72107 0.060016 0.39567 0.15306
80 0.72103 0.060004 0.39567 0.15306

𝑀 𝑉𝑚 ( )
𝐷 𝑢̄ + 𝑖𝑘𝑣̄ = 𝑑 𝐷𝑚 𝑢̄ 𝑚 + 𝑖𝑘𝑣̄ 𝑚 (2.34)
𝜀 𝑉

𝑉𝑚 𝑉 𝑀
𝑝̄ − 2𝐷𝑣̄ = 𝑑 𝑝̄ − 2𝑑 𝑚 𝐷 𝑣̄ (2.35)
𝑉 𝑚 𝑉 𝜀 𝑚 𝑚
Finally, Eqs. (2.21)–(2.26), together with the corresponding bound-
ary conditions, i.e., Eqs. (2.27)–(2.31), form an eighth order eigenvalue Fig. 3. The neutral curve in the (Re, k) plane for the classical plane Poiseuille
problem. In the next section, we briefly explain the methodology to solve flow in a channel.
this eigenvalue problem.
in a channel where a pure Newtonian fluid flows inside it and com-
3. Numerical method pared our results with the work by Orszag (Orszag, 1971). This is a
one-layer system, which is governed by Navier–Stokes equation only.
Because the properties of Chebyshev polynomials are very suit- Orszag used Chebyshev-tau method to solve the Orr–Sommerfeld equa-
able for solving this type of boundary condition problem, we selected tions. We found the most unstable mode occurs at Re = 10, 000 and k = 1
the Chebyshev collocation method to solve this eighth order eigen- is 𝜆 = 0.23752649 + 0.00373967i, which is the same as Orszag’s results.
value problem. The detailed procedures can be found in Dolapçi’s work Fig. 3 represents the neutral curve (𝜆i = 0), in the (Re, k) plane for the
(Dolapçi, 2004). We first transferred the domain of the fluid (0, 2) and classical plane Poiseuille flow in a channel. The critical Reynolds num-
the porous region (−2, 0) to the Chebyshev domain (−1, 1) by intro- ber was found to be 5773, which appears at k = 1.02.
ducing y′ = y − 1 and 𝑦′𝑚 = −𝑦𝑚 − 1. Then, the perturbation amplitudes,
i.e. [𝑢̄ (𝑦), 𝑣̄ (𝑦), 𝑝̄(𝑦), 𝑢̄ 𝑚 (𝑦𝑚 ), 𝑣̄ 𝑚 (𝑦𝑚 ), 𝑝̄𝑚 (𝑦𝑚 )]were approximated by us- 4.2. The effects of depth ratio d
ing the Chebyshev expansions as
𝑁
∑ 𝑁
∑ 𝑁
∑ Fig. 4 shows the neutral curves for various depth ratio d when M = 1,
( ) ( ) ( )
𝑢̄ (𝑦) = 𝑎𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦′ , 𝑣̄ (𝑦) = 𝑏𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦′ , 𝑝̄(𝑦) = 𝑐𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦′ (3.1) 𝛼 = 50, and 𝜀 = 0.8. Depending on the values of d, 𝛼, and 𝜀 the curves
𝑛=0 𝑛=0 𝑛=0 are composed of two intersecting curves and have a bi-modal structure.
( ) 𝑁
∑ ( ′ ) ( ) 𝑁
∑ ( ′ ) In Fig. 4(a), where the range of d varies from 0.1 to 0.5, the short-
𝑢̄ 𝑚 𝑦𝑚 = 𝑎𝑚
𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦 𝑚 , 𝑣̄ 𝑚 𝑦𝑚 = 𝑏𝑚
𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦 𝑚 , wave branch, i.e. the right-side branch or the so-called fluid branch
𝑛=0 𝑛 (3.2)
( ) ∑ ( ′ ) =0
(Chang et al., 2006; Liu et al., 2008; Hill and Straughan, 2009), domi-
𝑝̄𝑚 𝑦𝑚 = 𝑁 𝑚
𝑛=0 𝑐𝑛 𝑇𝑛 𝑦 𝑚
nates the instability of the system in all neutral curves, i.e. the instability
where Tn (y′) is the Chebyshev polynomials defined as primarily occurs in the fluid domain. For d = 0.5, the long-wave branch
( ) ( ) (Chang et al., 2006; Liu et al., 2008; Hill and Straughan, 2009), i.e. the
𝑇𝑛 𝑦′ = cos 𝑛 ∗ 𝑐𝑜𝑠−1 𝑦′ , −1 < 𝑦′ < 1 (3.3)
porous branch almost disappears. As the depth ratio decreases from 0.5
to 0.1, the effect of porous layer on the instability increases. Fig. 4(a)
(𝑁 − 𝑗 ) reveals that by decreasing the depth ratio d, the flow becomes unsta-
𝑦′𝑗 = cos 𝜋 (3.4)
𝑁 ble. On the contrary, as can be seen in Fig. 4(b), by further decreasing
Therefore, by arranging Eqs. (2.21)–(2.26) and the corresponding the depth ratio from 0.1 to 0.05 the flow becomes stable and the crit-
boundary conditions (Eqs. (2.27)–(2.31)) and using Chebyshev expan- ical Reynolds number increases. In addition, the effect of the fluid re-
sions, one can obtain the generalized eigenvalue problem as gion on the instability decreases. This inverse behavior of the neutral
curves in two different length ratio ranges, i.e. d ∈ (0.1, 0.5) and d ∈
[𝐴][𝑋 ] = 𝜆[𝐵 ][𝑋 ] (3.5)
(0.05, 0.1), have never been discussed in the previous literatures. We
This is a 6(N + 1) × 6(N + 1) matrix eigenvalue problem. To deter- also found that the critical depth ratio for M = 1, 𝛼 = 50, and 𝜀 = 0.8
mine the number N of Chebyshev polynomials, we then checked the is 0.0632. For d<0.0632 the porous mode dominates the instability and
convergence of the numerical results. Table 1 shows the leading eigen- when the depth ratio reaches to 0.05, the fluid branch nearly disappears.
value of two different cases with N = 50, 60, 70, 80. Case 1 corresponds For d>0.0632 the fluid mode always dominates the instability. In gen-
to 𝜀 = 0.5, d = 0.2, 𝛼 = 10, Re = 10, 000, k = 1 and Case 2 corresponds eral, these results show that the depth ratio is a critical parameter and
to 𝜀 = 0.9, d = 0.5, 𝛼 = 100, Re = 10, 000, k = 1. Moreover, 𝜆r and 𝜆i affects the instability of the porous-fluid system significantly.
represent the real part and imaginary part of the leading eigenvalue, In order to better understand the two critical modes in a neutral
respectively. Different values of N have been tested using our code and curve, i.e. the points where the minimal Reynolds numbers occurs in
we found N = 60 is adequate to obtain the accurate results. the fluid or porous branch, following the other researchers (Chang et al.,
2006; Liu et al., 2008; Hill and Straughan, 2009), we also present the
4. Results and discussion normalized vertical velocity amplitude, 𝑣̄ (𝑦) at the two minima in the
bi-modal structure of the neutral curve where d = 0.1, M = 1, 𝛼 = 50,
4.1. Instability of the classical plane Poiseuille flow 𝜀 = 0.8.
Fig. 5(a) shows the eigenfunction, i.e. the amplitude of vertical ve-
To verify the accuracy of our calculation procedure and the code, locity of the most unstable mode in the porous branch. The graph shows
we first conducted the calculations of the classical plane Poiseuille flow a flow reversal at the interface, which indicates the strong influence of

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Z. Wu and P. Mirbod
Fig. 5. The variations of normalized dimensional vertical velocity
amplitude, v(y) of the most unstable modes; (a) k = 0.63, Re = 213, and
(b) k = 1.31, Re = 110 for 𝛼 = 50, d = 0.1, 𝜀 = 0.8, M = 1.
instability from the porous medium layer near the fluid layer. This is
because the limited space within the fluid layer. In Fig. 5(b), the flow
reversal at the interface disappears. This phenomenon proofs the fluid
layer dominants the instability in the fluid-porous system. A similar sce-
nario has been observed by other researchers in Chang et al. (2006), Liu
et al. (2008), Hill and Straughan (2009).
4.3. The impact of the permeability parameter 𝛼
We then analyzed the impact of the permeability parameter 𝛼 on the
instability. Fig. 6 shows the neutral curves at different permeability pa-
rameters 𝛼 for M = 1, d = 0.1, and 𝜀 = 0.8. First, we considered the per-
meability parameter 𝛼 less than 50. As can be seen in Fig. 6(a), for 𝛼 <
25 the instability initiates in the porous region. By increasing 𝛼 from 25
to 50, the system becomes unstable and the impact of the porous layer
reduces. This is because larger 𝛼 values represent the porous layer has
lower permeability which lead to higher flow resistance in the porous
layer. It then appears that the instability in the fluid-porous system, es-
pecially at the fluid-porous interface more likely occurs. In addition, the
critical Reynolds number decreases and switches from the porous region
to the fluid region. At 𝛼 =31.6, the critical Reynolds number in the fluid
branch and the porous branch becomes equal. We then considered the
permeability parameter greater than 50. As shown in Fig. 6(b), by in-
creasing 𝛼 from 50 to 150, an opposite behavior of the neutral curves
was found where the critical Reynolds number increases. This represents
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Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228
Fig. 4. The variation of neutral curves for (a) d = 0.1, 0.2,
0.3, 0.4, 0.5; (b) d = 0.05, 0.06, 0.0632, 0.08, 0.1 at 𝛼 = 50,
𝜀 = 0.8, M = 1 in the (Re, k) plane.
the porous-fluid system becomes more stable. In addition, the bi-modal
structure can be found in all these curves in Fig. 6(b), where the short-
wave branch (i.e., the fluid branch) is always lower than the long-wave
branch (i.e., the porous branch), which indicates the instability is dom-
inated by the fluid branch. This is because as 𝛼 increases, the effect of
porous layer on the instability becomes insignificant.
4.4. The impact of the parameter 𝛾
By comparing the effect of the depth ratio and the permeability
parameter on the instability system, we found there is always a neu-
tral curve with a critical value of 𝛼 or d, which has identical minimal
Reynolds number in both fluid branch and the porous branch. This phe-
nomenon has not been addressed before. We then defined a new param-
eter 𝛾 which relates 𝛼 and d as
𝐿
𝛾 =𝛼×𝑑 = √ (4.1)
𝐾
Fig. 7 shows the neutral curves for 𝛾 = 2.5, 3.16, 4 at M = 1, 𝜀 = 0.8.
For each 𝛾, we have chosen two groups of 𝛼 and d values. As can be
seen in Fig. 7, the neutral curves for two groups of 𝛼 and d values are
overlapped perfectly. This indicates that 𝛾 is independent from the com-
bination of the values of 𝛼 and d. In other words, once we determine a
𝛾 value, we can choose different combination of 𝛼 and d values without
changing the structure of the neutral curve. Thus, instead of comparing
𝛼 and d separately, it is more convenient to distinguish the instability
of the system by comparing only the 𝛾 value. It should be noted that,
the parameter 𝛾 is not valid for the extreme conditions when 𝛼 → ∞,
𝛼 → 0, d → ∞, and d → 0. As can be seen in Fig. 7, 𝛾 = 𝛾 c = 3.16 is a criti-
cal value where the minimum value of the Reynolds number in both the
fluid and the porous branch are the same. Thus, specifically for M = 1,
𝜀 = 0.8, when 𝛾 is less than 𝛾 c , where the instability is dominated by the
porous region, the system becomes more stable and when 𝛾 is greater
than 𝛾 c , the instability is dominated by the fluid branch, the values of
the critical Reynolds number decays, and the system becomes unstable.
4.5. The effect of the porosity 𝜀
To further examine the instability of the coupled flow in terms of
the properties of the porous media, the neutral curves for various poros-
ity are shown in Fig. 8 for M = 1, d = 0.1, 𝛼 = 0.8. We found that the
bi-modal structure appears in all the neutral curves. When the poros-
ity 𝜀 increases, the porous branch and the fluid branch both become
more unstable, especially at the region close to the intersection. It
should be noted that the analytical model used in studying the flow
inside porous medium is Brinkman’s equation, and in low porosity en-
vironments the Laplacian term in the Brinkman’s equation is not valid
Z. Wu and P. Mirbod
Fig. 7. The neutral curves for 𝛾 = 2.5, 3.16, 4 at M = 1, 𝜀 = 0.8.
Fig. 8. The neutral curves for 𝜀 = 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 99 at 𝛼 = 50, d = 0.1, M = 1.
(Hill and Straughan, 2009). Therefore, we could only consider the con-
ditions for 𝜀 ≥ 0.3. Generalization to the smaller porosity values is the
subject of our current investigations.
We then investigated the effect of the porosity on the instability of
the system by defining the critical parameter 𝛾. Fig. 9 shows the neutral
curves at the critical parameter 𝛾 c for 𝜀 = 0.3, 𝜀 = 0.6, and 𝜀 = 0.99. The
critical parameter 𝛾 c for each porosity value obtained by a combination
of two different values of 𝛼 and d. This confirms that the neutral curve
presented in Fig. 7 can be employed for various porosity of the porous
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Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228
Fig. 6. The variation of neutral curves for (a) 𝛼 = 15, 25, 30,
31.6, 35, 40, 50; (b) 𝛼 = 50, 75, 100, 150 at d = 0.1, 𝜀 = 0.8,
M = 1 in the (Re, k) plane.
Fig. 9. The neutral curves at (a) 𝜀 = 0.30, 𝛾 c = 3.11 (b) 𝜀 = 0.60, 𝛾 c = 3.18
(c) 𝜀 = 0.99, 𝛾 c = 3.08. For all cases M = 1.
media as long as 𝜀 ≥ 0.3. Also, for M = 1 the critical parameter 𝛾 c = 3.1
± 0.1, which indicates that there is a weak effect of the porosity on the
instability. We would like to emphasize that the parameter 𝛾 is only
valid in the normal condition. We will discuss the special conditions in
the next section.
4.6. Special cases
To examine the special cases of the coupled flow system, because of
the numerical limitations we only consider large or small values of 𝛼 and
d in our analysis. Fig. 10 shows the neutral curve and the corresponding
basic flow velocity profile for d = 104 , 𝛼 = 10−4 ,M = 1, 𝜀 = 1. The result-
ing neutral curve shown in Fig. 10(a), is the same as the classical plane
Poiseuille flow in a smooth channel, see Fig. 3. We then assume d = 104
as a constant value and vary 𝛼, M, and 𝜀, where no variation in the re-
sults was observed, see Fig. 10. These results state that for very large val-
ues of the length ratio, the effect of the porous medium on the instability
is negligible. This effect can also be seen in Fig. 10(b) which shows the
Z. Wu and P. Mirbod
Fig. 10. (a) The neutral curve for 𝛼 = 10−4 , d = 104 , 𝜀 = 1, M = 1 in the (Re, k)
plane, and (b) the corresponding normalized basic flow velocity profile.
Fig. 11. (a) The neutral curve for 𝛼 = 10−4 , d = 10−4 ,𝜀 = 1, M = 1 in the
(Rem , km ) plane, and (b) the corresponding normalized basic flow velocity pro-
file.
normalized basic flow velocity profile for d = 104 , 𝛼 = 10−4 ,M = 1, 𝜀 = 1.
For large values of the depth ratio d, the normalized velocity inside the
porous layer reaches to very small values, that is a characteristic of the
plug flow inside the porous layer. This is because the effect of the porous
layer becomes insignificant resulting in the instability characterization
of the classical plane Poiseuille flow when the height of the channel is
2L.
We then considered the condition with 𝛼 = 104 , 𝜀 = 10−4 , d = 1. That
is the case with an extremely low permeability and porosity of the
porous medium. We found the neutral curve and the corresponding basic
flow velocity profile are the same as Fig. 10. This indicates that for very
large permeability parameter, the effect of the porous medium on the
instability of the system is also negligible. In other words, a very large
permeability parameter represents an impermeable surface in the chan-
nel. Furthermore, the normalized basic flow velocity inside the porous
layer is almost equal to zero. As a result, these graphs demonstrate that
the instability of the system is determined by the free-fluid layer when
either the length ratio or the permeability parameter are extremely high.
Fig. 11(a) shows the neutral curve for 𝛼 = 10−4 , 𝜀 = 1,
d = 10−4 , M = 1. This is the case with a very high permeability
and porosity porous medium layer and an extremely low length
ratio. If we consider the neutral curve in the (Rem , km ) plane, us-
𝑉
ing𝑘𝑚 = 𝑑𝑘 , and 𝑅𝑒𝑚 = 𝑉𝑚 𝑑 𝑅𝑒, we can find that the critical Reynolds
number, the corresponding wave number, and the neutral curve in
the porous medium region are the same as classical plane Poiseuille
flow in a no-porous channel. Fig. 11(b) shows the corresponding basic
flow velocity profile which is normalized by Vm , i.e., the maximum
velocity inside the porous medium. This figure clearly shows that the
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Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228
normalized velocity profile inside the free-flow region is zero, which
confirms that the free-flow region has no impact on instability of the
system.
5. Conclusions
In the present study, we examined the linear stability problem be-
tween two parallel plates where the bottom one coated with various
porous media with permeability K and porosity 𝜀. This work considers
a model to describe a wider parameter space which helps us to find dif-
ferent behaviors of the system instability. The Brinkman’s and Navier–
Stokes equations were coupled to describe the flow inside the porous
medium and in the free-fluid region, respectively. The Laplacian term of
our governing equations has also been defined based on our experimen-
tal measurements (Wu and Mirbod, 2018) which is different from the
corresponding one in the previous studies (Thiele et al., 2009; Hill and
Straughan, 2008; Goyal et al., 2013; Lyubimova et al., 2016). We first
characterized the effect of the depth ratio d on the system. In particular,
we found that there are ranges of the depth ratio and the permeability
parameter that will affect the instability of this coupled flow. We found
that for d ≥ 0.1, 𝛼 = 50, M = 1, and 𝜀 = 80, as the length ratio increases,
the effect of the porous medium on the instability decreases; also, the
entire system becomes more stable results in an increasing the critical
Reynolds number. For d ≤ 0.1, as the depth ratio decreases the effect
of the fluid branch on the instability decreases. It appears that there is
a critical value of d=0.0632 at which the instability is switched from
the fluid mode to the porous mode. We then investigated the effect of
the permeability parameter 𝛼 when M = 1, and 𝜀 = 80. It was found that
for 𝛼 ≤ 50, the system becomes more stable as 𝛼 decreases. When 𝛼
becomes less than 31.6, the porous branch dominates the system. For
𝛼 ≥ 50, as 𝛼 increases, the system becomes stable and the fluid mode
dominates the instability.
To describe the instability behavior of the coupled flow system more
broadly, we proposed a new parameter 𝛾 as the product of the length ra-
tio d and the permeability parameter 𝛼. We found for each 𝛾 value, there
is a neutral curve which is independent of the combination of 𝛼 and d
values. In addition, for each specific porosity value 𝜀 there exists a criti-
cal parameter 𝛾 c . The neutral curve and the corresponding critical value
could help to characterize the instability of the system and whether the
system is dominated by the fluid branch or the porous branch.
We further studied the effect of porosity on the instability. We com-
pared the neutral curves at porosities 𝜀 = 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 0.99 and ob-
served that the system becomes slightly unstable when the porosity in-
creases. We then determined the critical 𝛾 values for 𝜀 = 0.3, 0.6, 0.99
and we found that the critical 𝛾 always equals to 3.1 ± 0.1, which indi-
cates the porosity has little effect on the instability.
We have also examined and compared three special cases including;
(1) the extremely large d values, (2) the extremely large 𝛼 values, and
(3) the extremely small 𝛼, d values. For the former two cases, the effect
of the porous medium on the system is negligible, and the system be-
haves the same as the classical plane Poiseuille flow in a channel with
impermeable surfaces. For the last case, the free-fluid region has no ef-
fect on the fluid-porous system and the instability behavior inside the
porous medium is also the same as the classical plane Poiseuille flow
in a channel with impermeable surfaces because of the extremely high
permeability and porosity condition. These results agree well with the
real physical phenomena.
These results will provide valuable insights into the analysis of the
pure Newtonian fluid overlying a porous media that are important in
a wide range of industrial applications ranging from biological devices
to geophysical problems. It is expected that the results obtained in this
study will provide a step forward in understanding and examining the
complex fluids motion over permeable surfaces and analyzing the insta-
bility of such system. The precise experiments to investigate the insta-
bility more deeply and validate our analytical model are subjects of our
current investigations.
Z. Wu and P. Mirbod Advances in Water Resources 130 (2019) 221–228

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