Numerical study on combined buoyancy–Marangoni convection heat and mass transfer of power-law nanofluids in a cubic cavity filled with a heterogeneous porous medium

Abstract

In this paper, the combined buoyancy–Marangoni convection of non-Newtonian power-law nanofluids in a 3D heterogeneous porous cubic cavity is investigated in detail with the compact high order finite volume method. Special attentions are given to detect the effects of heterogeneity level, Marangoni number, thermal Rayleigh number, buoyancy ratio and nanoparticle volume fraction on the fluid flow as well as on rates of heat and mass transfer. It is observed that as a result of the exponential distribution of the permeability, the heat and mass transfer rates reduce as the level of heterogeneity enhances. The effect of the surface tension on the heat and mass transfer intensity becomes insignificant when the buoyancy force is strengthened. Further, the average Nusselt and Sherwood numbers increase as the Marangoni number and thermal Rayleigh number increase due to the combined effects of buoyancy and surface tension. The augmentation of the buoyancy ratio causes convection heat and mass transfer to increase for the thermal dominated flow while decrease in buoyancy ratio also augments it for the solutal dominated flow. The heat transfer (mass transfer) rate is found to increase (decrease) with increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction. Moreover, for all above studied parameters, an intensification of the flow and an increase in average Nusselt and Sherwood numbers occur with the decrease in power-law index.