Numerical study of mixed convection heat transfer enhancement in a horizontal channel by adding metal foam blocks

Abstract EN

Mixed convection heat transfer in a horizontal channel supplied with metal foam blocks and partially heated at a constant heat flux is numerically investigated with air as the working fluid.

The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is utilized to simulate the flow in the porous medium and the Navier-Stokes equation in the fluid region.

The numerical investigations cover the Reynolds number range from 500 to 2000, heat fluxes varied from 500 to 6000 W/m2 , and Darcy number 5 x10-2 to 1x10-3 .

Results show that the wall temperatures at each heated section areaffected by the imposed heat flux variation, Darcy and Reynolds numbers variation.

The variations of the local heat transfer coefficient and the mean Nusselt number are presented and analysed.

The mean Nusselt number nhancement was found to be more than 85% for all the studied cases from the fluid case.