Convective plume paths in anisotropic porous media

Free convection motions induced by point sources or horizontal line sources of heat are usually assumed to take the form of a vertically orientated plume. In this paper we consider how material anisotropy affects the path of the plume centreline and we show that it is strongly affected by both the anisotropy and the presence of impermeable bounding surfaces. The plume path is a straight line whose angle from the vertical is determined by a balance between the upward buoyancy force, the need for the plume to entrain equal amounts of fluid from the external regions either side of it, and the ease of fluid motion in the direction of the principal axis with the highest permeability.