Forced convective heat transfer in metallic fibrous materials

A numerical study is reported for high Reynolds number forced convection in a channel filled with rigid metallic fibrous materials of high porosity. The effects of convective and form inertia, viscous shear and thermal dispersion are all considered together. Inertia and thermal dispersion are modeled. The numerical results suggest that heat transfer rate increases with increasing Reynolds number within a range, but not significantly beyond that range. The heat transfer rate also increases with stagnant thermal conductivity, and decreases with Darcy number. The fiber thickness was found to have significant influence on thermal dispersion. The range of applicability of the local volume averaging in terms of the significant parameters is discussed.