NOTE ON THERMAL CONVECTION IN A SATURATED, HEAT-GENERATING POROUS LAYER.

Measurements of steady-state heat transfer coefficients are presented for a porous layer with a rigid, insulated lower boundary and a rigid, isothermal upper boundary. From these measurements, the critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection is determined. The authors also compare their results for heat transfer to those of Buretta and Berman, Sun, Hardee and Nilson, and Rhee, Dhir and Catton, whose papers appear to be the only relevant literature at the present. The interesting feature of the present authors' results is that, while their range of Rayleigh numbers is essentially the same as that in the papers cited above, the Nusselt number versus Rayleigh number relation does not exhibit the discontinuity observed by Buretta and Berman and, in addition, lies close to the lower branch of their correlation over the entire range of Rayleigh number.