Modelling Heat and Mass Transfer in the Vicinity of a Small Intrusive Body Emplaced into an Inhomogeneous Permeable Medium

Abstract

A boundary layer approach is applied to the study of heat and mass transfer induced by heating from a small intrusion (modelled as a point or linear heat source) emplaced into an inhomogeneous permeable medium It is shown that self-similarity solutions, describing the structure of thermal plumes, can be constructed for a certain class of spatial dependencies of permeability This class includes, however, many practically important cases, the corresponding solutions for which were obtained by use of asymptotic or numerical methods Two structural models (a zone of high permeability situated above the intrusion and a system of listric faults) are studied in detail and results of calculations (for the stream function and the vertical component of D.Arcy velocity, proportional to the temperature change) are presented From the viewpoint of practical applications, it is important that the derived solutions provide a very simple way to study the structure of hydrothermal plumes in inhomogeneous media