NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER IN A VERTICAL POROUS CHANNEL USING A NON-EQUILIBRIUM MODEL

Convective heat transfer in a vertical porous channel heated by the wall and isolated on the other face was simulated numerically and experimentally. The porous medium is formed by a solid matrix of spherical beads. The considered fluid is air that saturates the solid matrix. The two-temperature model and the Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer equation are adopted to represent this system, and the porosity is considered as variable in the domain. The numerical model was used to analyze the effect of several operating parameters on heat transfer enhancement. Heat transfer decreases with the increase of the form factor. When Biot number increases, heat transfer between the heated wall and the porous domain is increased. Heat transfer increases with Reynolds number and with the thermal conductivity of the solid matrix. The influence of the thermal conductivity of the particles on heat transfer in the porous medium decreases with an increase of the thermal conductivity of the metallic beads, principally when the diameter of the beads increases. An increase of the bead diameter induces a decrease of heat transfer. Nusselt numbers based on the particle diameter have been correlated with respect to Reynolds number and the particle diameter. Furthermore, simulation results have been validated by experiments.