Numerical Study of Flow and Heat Transfer in a Rectangular Channel Partially Filled with Porous Media at the Pore Scale Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

Abstract

This work numerically presents the study of flow and heat transfer in a rectangular channel partially filled with porous media at the pore scale using lattice Boltzmann method. Quartet structure generation set is adopted to generate the structure of porous media. The effects of the relative height, porosity and specific surface area of porous media on the fluid flow and the Nusselt number are investigated in detail. The simulation results indicate that there exists a relative height of porous media where the Nusselt number and average dimensionless velocity are both up to their maximums; dimensionless velocity and Nusselt number slightly increase with the increment of porosity at small specific surface area, but have no significant change at large specific surface area; the increase rates of dimensionless velocity and Nusselt number with the increment of specific surface area decrease as porosity decreases. Based on the simulation results, correlations of Nusselt number with the fluid flow in the zone adjacent to porous media and the characteristic of porous media are established.