Convective plumes in porous media: The effect of asymmetrically placed boundaries

A boundary layer analysis is performed for the free convective plume induce d by a uniform line source which is placed at the intersection of two semi- infinite planes. Particular emphasis is placed on how the presence of the p lanes, which are not placed symmetrically with respect to the vertical, aff ects the direction of the plume. To this end, a two-term boundary layer exp ansion together and a one-term approximation of the flow in the outer regio ns either side of the plume are performed using the method of matched asymp totic expansions. A closed-form solution is deduced which determines the or ientation of the plume in terms of the inclinations of the bounding planes. We find that symmetrically placed planes result in a vertical plume, but t hat the plume is aligned differently otherwise. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science L td.