MOMENTUM INTEGRAL METHOD FOR FORCED CONVECTION IN THERMAL NONEQUILIBRIUM POWER-LAW FLUID-SATURATED POROUS MEDIA

Abstract

Forced convection heat transfer for power-law fluid flow in porous media was studied analytically. The analytical solutions were obtained based on the Brinkman-extended Darcy model for fluid flow and the two-equation model for forced convection heat transfer. As a closed-form exact velocity profile is unobtainable for the general power-law index, an approximate velocity profile based on the parabolic model is proposed by subscribing to the momentum boundary layer integral method. Heat transfer analysis is based on the two-equation model by considering local thermal nonequilibrium between fluid and solid phases and constant heat flux boundary conditions. The velocity and temperature distributions obtained based on the parabolic model were verified to be reasonably accurate and improvement is justified compared to the linear model. The expression for the overall Nusselt number was derived based on the proposed parabolic model. The effects of the governing parameters of engineering importance such as Darcy number, power-law index, nondimensional interfacial heat transfer coefficient, and effective thermal conductivity ratio on the convective heat transfer characteristics of non-Newtonian fluids in porous media are analyzed and discussed.