Flow and Heat Transfer during an Expansion Stroke in a Composite Fluid/Porous System

The purpose of this study is to analyze the fluid flow and heat transfer in a pipe partially filled with porous media and provided with a flat piston during an expansion stroke. In addition to the Navier-Stokes equation for the fluid region, Brinkman-Forchheimer-Lapwood-extended Darcy’s model is introduced into the numerical solver to simulate flow and heat transfer in the porous insert. The heat transfer in porous media is studied by using the assumption of local thermal equilibrium. The discretization procedure is based on Control-Volume-based Finite Element Method. The coupled pressure-velocity equations are solved using the SIMPLER algorithm. This investigation concerns the hydrodynamic characteristics, using the Reynolds numbers and the porosity effects, and the heat transfer characteristics using the heat capacity and the thermal conductivity ratios effects.