Abstract
This paper reports an analysis of natural convection and entropy generation inside a square porous enclosure with sinusoidal temperature variation on the side walls. The natural convection heat transfer is calculated by solving numerically the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations. Moreover, the generation of entropy is discussed in terms of heat transfer irreversibility and fluid friction irreversibility. As thermal boundary conditions, the two horizontal walls are maintained adiabatic. Meanwhile, both symmetric and anti-symmetric sinusoidal temperature distributions are applied to the side walls and the corresponding results are compared. It is found that, although the case with anti-symmetric temperature boundary conditions achieves higher heat transfer, it suffers from high entropy generation rate.
Highlights
As a consequence of diverse applications of porous media in the construction of industrial devices ranging from electrical heaters [1] to solar collectors [2], considerable interest has been drawn to study flow as well as thermal fields inside these materials
The second analysis, shows the contribution of this study that is associated with heat transfer process and entropy generation characteristics in the natural convective flow inside a porous enclosure with symmetric/anti-symmetric sinusoidal temperature variations on the side walls
Numerical Validation The present numerical implementation is validated by reproducing a porous enclosure with uniformly heated/cooled side walls and insulated horizontal walls
Summary
As a consequence of diverse applications of porous media in the construction of industrial devices ranging from electrical heaters [1] to solar collectors [2], considerable interest has been drawn to study flow as well as thermal fields inside these materials. One of the issues in this field goes back to the development of natural convective flows inside enclosures filled with a fluid-saturated porous medium. This problem occurs in numerous practical applications such as thermal insulation technology, ground water hydrology, petroleum reservoir modeling, and storage of radioactive nuclear waste materials. Previous works have mainly been concentrated on enclosures with constant wall temperatures and those with non-uniform. The discontinuities can be removed if one chooses non-uniform temperature distributions along the walls. By employing non-uniform heating/cooling, the establishment of flow and thermal fields as well heat transfer characteristics inside the enclosure can be controlled
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