Through porous medium enclosing a rectangular isothermal body

Abstract EN

Steady free convection through a porous medium around a rectangular isothermal body has been numerically investigated.

The isothermal body is kept at constant low temperature and the porous medium has an impermeable rectangular boundaries.

The cavity wall of porous material has a constant high temperature.

The full governing equations (momentum an energy equation) have been solved for range of values of the governing parameters by using the finite difference method and covered a wide range of modified Rayleigh number (Ra) (0-500) with different sizes of isothermal body.

Results are presented in terms of the streamlines and isotherms to show the behavior of the flow and temperature fields.

This study shows that the Nusselt number (Nu) is a strong function of the modified Rayleigh number, the isothermal body size and boundary conditions.

For certain range of Ra, the rate of heat transfer decreases when the flow divided into primary and secondary cells.