The regenerative cooling technology which uses endothermic hydrocarbon fuel as coolant provides guarantee for the efficient operation of scramjet. The porous medium used in the regenerative cooling channel can enhance heat transfer to increase the heat sink of hydrocarbons due to its high thermal conductivity. To further elucidate the effect of porous media in the actual regenerative cooling, this paper constructs a three-dimensional cooling channel filled with porous media under different heating surfaces in the numerical simulations. The simulation results show that the buoyancy of fuel fluid under different heating surfaces is different, causing different behavior of the fluid flow direction on the cross section. Bottom heating produces the best heat transfer effect in the regenerative cooling channels with/without porous media. When porous medium is added in the cooling channel, its high thermal conductivity is conducive to energy transport, leading to the reduction of the density stratification and temperature non-uniformity coefficient, and the outlet temperature and heat sink of fuel fluid are increased. In addition, the obstructing effect of porous media causes the cross-sectional fluid flow direction to change in the cooling channel, and the most significant obstruction is observed in the case of the top heating process.
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