Forced Convection with Laminar Pulsating Flow in a Saturated Porous Channel or Tube

A perturbation approach is used to obtain analytical expressions for the velocity, temperature distribution, and transient Nusselt number for the problem of forced convection, in a parallel-plates channel or a circular tube occupied by a saturated porous medium modeled by the Brinkman equation, produced by an applied pressure gradient that fluctuates with small amplitude harmonically in time about a non-zero mean. It is shown that the fluctuating part of this Nusselt number alters in magnitude and phase as the dimensionless frequency increases. The magnitude increases from zero, goes through a peak, and then decreases to zero. The height of the peak decreases as the modified Prandtl number increases. The phase (relative to that of the steady component) decreases from π/2 to  −  π/2. The height of the peak at first increases, goes through a maximum, and then decreases as the Darcy number decreases.