Natural convection in a fluid-saturated porous enclosure with a pair of vertical diathermal partition

Abstract

Abstract Unsteady natural convection in a fluid saturated porous enclosure with a pair of vertical diathermal partition separated at equal distance from centre of enclosure is studied in this paper. The purpose is to curtail the convection heat transfer rate across a differentially heated enclosure. The governing equations are based on Darcy s model and solved using Successive Accelerated Replacement and explicit scheme. Streamlines and isotherms are observed for various values of partition ratio, where partition ratio is the ratio of distance of from enclosure centre to either of the partition to the total length of the enclosure; while Nusselt number is evaluated to manifest the heat transfer rate of each configuration. It is found that, employing partition in the porous enclosure substantially attenuates the value of Nusselt number. It has been also found that lower the value of partition ratio, higher will be the reduction in Nusselt number.