Transport in Porous Media, Vol.87, No.2, 625-633, 2011
The Effects of Fluid-to-Solid Conductivity Ratio, Rayleigh Number and Interstitial Heat Transfer Coefficient on the TNE Free Convection in a Porous Enclosure
This article is concerned with thermal non-equilibrium (TNE) free convection in a two-dimensional porous enclosure. The Darcy model is used for the momentum equation and it is assumed that a substantial temperature difference exists between solid and fluid phases. Numerical solutions of the governing equations are obtained for a wide range of the governing parameters. The Nusselt numbers for both solid and fluid phases are calculated for a wide range of Rayleigh number, i.e., 500 a parts per thousand currency sign Ra a parts per thousand currency sign 1500. The effects of the cavity dimensions as well as the fluid-to-solid conductivity ratio on the Nusselt number are also studied. The results of the presented study are compared with those of thermal equilibrium model. Moreover, the results are compared with major computational models presented in the literatures. The results obtained for the Nusselt number in the case of TNE model are correlated with a function incorporating the effects of effective non-dimensional parameters.