Double diffusion natural convection in a rectangular enclosure filled with binary fluid saturated porous media: The effect of lateral aspect ratio

Abstract

Three-dimensional, double diffusion, natural convection in a rectangular enclosure filled with binary fluid saturating porous media is investigated numerically. The effect of lateral aspect ratio on the heat, mass, and momentum transfer is systematically studied. For certain range of parameters, it is interesting to find that the flow patterns may duplicate themselves as the lateral aspect ratio increases by integer factors, which is similar to longitudinal roll formation in a Rayleigh–Bénard problem. For the mentioned range of parameters the change in the lateral aspect ratio has no influence on the rates of heat and mass transfer. However, for other ranges of parameters, the flow exhibits completely different patterns and the rates of heat and mass transfer are influenced drastically compared with that of cubic cavity. In general, the flow of three- and two-dimensional results are difficult to justify, especially if interest is on the flow structure.