Thermal transport in microchannels partially filled with micro-porous media involving flow inertia, flow/thermal slips, thermal non-equilibrium and thermal asymmetry

Abstract

The theoretical investigation of the fully-developed forced convection heat transfer in a microchannel partially filled with a porous medium core is performed by considering the local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) effect between the solid and fluid phases. The two walls sandwiching the channel are exposed to the boundary conditions of the thermal asymmetry. The flexible porous medium core is not connected to the boundary walls. Influences of the flow inertia in the porous medium region, the velocity jumps at the porous/fluid interfaces, and the flow and thermal slips at the solid-fluid interfaces are involved. A set of exact solutions is derived for the flow and heat transfer in the porous medium region and the fluid region. The flow heterogeneity coefficient for the nonuniform distribution of the fluid flow is especially considered, and the relationship between the flow heterogeneity and the thermal performance is discussed. The effects of some basic factors on the temperature distribution and the Nusselt numbers of the two walls are analyzed. The present benchmark solution is useful for improving the numerical scheme accuracy and validating similar researches.