Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2001 / iii / Paper 44 / 4 / i

Far downslope let the typical height be $H(X)$ and the cross-slope half-width be $W(X)$. Slenderness gives $W\ll X$ and slowly varying longitudinal thickness. In a steady porous gravity current, the longitudinal spreading term is smaller than advection by the ratio $H/X$, while longitudinal diffusion relative to transverse diffusion is of order $(W/X{)}^2$. Thus the leading balance isIntegrating across the finite current, with zero flux through its dry side edges, makes the leading downslope volume flux constant:Balancing the two differential terms givesEliminate $H\propto W^{-1/\beta }$ to find the far-downslope width of a constant-flux porous current:The typical height is correspondingly $H\propto X^{-1/(2\beta +1)}$. For every $\beta >0$, the width exponent is less than one half, so $W/X\to 0$ and $H/X\to 0$, consistent with the discarded longitudinal terms. The porosity exponent $\alpha$ drops out because it enters storage, which has zero time derivative in this steady problem.