Global stability of centrifugal filtration convection

A nonlinear stability analysis is performed to study the onset of convection in a fluid saturated porous layer subject to alternating direction of the centrifugal body force. By introducing a suitable energy functional, the analysis is carried out for the Darcy and the Brinkman models of flow through porous media. The nonlinear result is unconditional and its sharpest limit is determined and is compared with the corresponding linear limit. The failure of linear theory in describing the instability is established in a certain region of the parameter space where possible subcritical instabilities may arise. The stability boundaries are discussed graphically for various values of the Darcy number and comparison is made with the available known results.