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Natural Convection Flow and Heat Transfer Between a Fluid Layer and a Porous Layer Inside a Rectangular Enclosure
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1987
Year
EngineeringSingle-phase FlowPorous Medium EquationsFluid MechanicsConvective Heat TransferVertical Rectangular EnclosureHeat Transfer ProcessFluid PropertiesMixed ConvectionTransport PhenomenaThermodynamicsNatural ConvectionHeat Transfer BetweenFluid-saturated Porous MediumHeat TransferMultiphase FlowHeat Transfer EnhancementRectangular EnclosureThermal EngineeringNatural Convection FlowThermo-fluid Systems
The study investigates steady‑state natural convection and heat transfer in a vertical rectangular enclosure partially filled with a fluid‑saturated porous layer. The authors model the porous layer with Brinkman–Forchheimer–extended Darcy equations and validate the numerical model through experiments using glass‑bead porous media and water or glycerin in rectangular cells. The numerical model agrees well with experiments, showing that fluid penetration into the porous layer—and thus the overall convection pattern—depends strongly on the product of Rayleigh and Darcy numbers, with low values confining flow to the fluid layer and high permeability causing significant changes in the enclosure.
A numerical and experimental study is performed to analyze the steady-state natural convection fluid flow and heat transfer in a vertical rectangular enclosure that is partially filled with a vertical layer of a fluid-saturated porous medium. The flow in the porous layer is modeled utilizing the Brinkman–Forchheimer–extended Darcy equations. The numerical model is verified by conducting a number of experiments, with spherical glass beads as the porous medium and water and glycerin as the fluids, in rectangular test cells. The agreement between the flow visualization results and temperature measurements and the numerical model is, in general, good. It is found that the amount of fluid penetrating from the fluid region into the porous layer depends strongly on the Darcy (Da) and Rayleigh (Ra) numbers. For a relatively low product of Ra × Da, the flow takes place primarily in the fluid layer, and heat transfer in the porous layer is by conduction only. On other hand, fluid penetrating into a relatively highly permeable porous layer has a significant impact on the natural convection flow patterns in the entire enclosure.