Microscopic and macroscopic approach for natural convection in enclosures filled with fluid saturated porous medium

Abstract

In this paper, microscopic and macroscopic approaches to the solution of natural convection in enclosures filled with fluid saturated porous media are investigated. At the microscopic level, the porous medium is represented by different assemblies of cylinders and the Navier‐Stokes equations are assumed to govern the flow. To represent the flow in a macroscopic porous medium approach, the generalised flow model is employed. The characteristic based split scheme is used to solve the conservation equations of both approaches. In addition to the comparison between microscopic and macroscopic approaches of fluid saturated porous enclosures, cavities with interface between fluid saturated porous medium and single phase fluid are also investigated.