Analysis of heat transfer and entropy generation for a thermally developing Brinkman-Brinkman forced convection problem in a rectangular duct with isoflux walls

Heat transfer and entropy generation analysis of the thermally developing forced convection in a porous-saturated duct of rectangular cross-section, with walls maintained at a constant and uniform heat flux, is investigated based on the Brinkman flow model. The classical Galerkin method is used to obtain the fully developed velocity distribution. To solve the thermal energy equation, with the effects of viscous dissipation being included, the extended weighted residuals method (EWRM) is applied. The local (three-dimensional) temperature field is solved by utilizing the Green's function solution based on the EWRM where symbolic algebra is being used for convenience in presentation. Following the computation of the temperature field, expressions are presented for the local Nusselt number and the bulk temperature as a function of the dimensionless longitudinal coordinate, the aspect ratio, the Darcy number, the viscosity ratio, and the Brinkman number. With the velocity and temperature field being determined, the second law (of thermodynamics) aspect of the problem is also investigated. Approximate closed form solutions are also presented for two limiting cases of MDa values. It is observed that decreasing the aspect ratio and MDa values increases the entropy generation rate. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.