Effects of boundary conditions on non-darcian heat transfer through porous media and experimental comparisons

The present work centers around the numerical simulation of forced convective incompressible flow through porous beds. Inertial as well as viscous effects are considered in the momentum equation. The mathematical model for energy transport was based on the two-phase equation model, which does not employ local thermal equilibrium assumption between the fluid and the solid phases. The transport processes for two different types of boundary conditions are studied. The analysis was performed in terms of nondimensional parameters that successfully cast together all the pertinent influencing effects. Comparisons were made between our numerical findings and experimental results. Overall, the comparisons that were made for the constant wall heat flux boundary condition display good agreement.