Thermosolutal Convection in a Porous Medium Cavity Subjected to Heat and Mass Flux: A Discrete Fracture Effect

Species separation in heterogeneous porous media is a field of interest of many industrial activities. In our investigation, the effect of a single discrete fracture on the thermosolutal convection coupled with the Soret effect have been analyzed. The main results show that the fracture can greatly affect the behavior of the thermogravitational flow and might play a positive role to the separation caused by the Soret effect. Furthermore, the fracture tilted to the cold wall causes a large separation compared to the one tilted to the hot wall with the same angle. Therefore, the separation process could be greatly improved.