FORCED-CONVECTION IN A PARALLEL PLATE CHANNEL PARTIALLY FILLED WITH A HIGH POROSITY MEDIUM

This paper presents a numerical study of non-Darcy effects on the fully developed forced convection parallel plate channel flow partially filled with a porous medium. The Navier-Stokes equations govern the fluid motion in the fluid region, while Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer model is assumed to hold within the porous media. The effect of thermal dispersion in the porous matrix is also considered. Inclusion of these effects significantly alters the velocity and temperature profile for those predicted by Darcy and Darcy-Brinkman models. It is shown that the Nusselt number strongly depends on the open space thickness ratio S, and a critical value of the porous layer thickness exists at which the Nusselt number reaches a minimum. The critical value of the porous layer thickness shifts to lower S as the Darcy number decreases. In addition, it is found that thermal dispersion effect is only significant for small values of open space thickness ratio S.