Computational Modeling of Flow and Natural Convective Heat Transfer in Porous Media, Using LBM- Effects of Nano-fluidicity and Domain Geometry

Natural convective heat transfer of nano-fluid in porous media is present in many advanced engineering applications. In this work, this problem has been computationally simulated, using LBM. The configuration used includes a cold exterior region and hot interior cylinders with one-, two-, or three-cylinder arrangements. However, the effective area for heat transfer has been kept the same for all three cases. A D2Q9 grid has been used. for To consider the porous media, the related source term has been considered in the equation of relation density distribution function (the Brinkman-Forchheimer model has been used). Our results have been validated using previous available valid data which shows relatively close agreements. The effect of Rayleigh and Darcy numbers, porosity, and arrangements of the cylinder(s) on the Nusselt number of the cold region wall and also the heat transfer performance of the configuration have been investigated in this work. Our results closely simulate the nano-fluid behavior inside the porous media. The results show that as the Rayleigh and Darcy numbers and porosity increase, natural convective heat transfer is enhanced. In addition, as the number of cylinders increases, such heat transfer is enhanced considerably. Finally, as expected, as the nano-particle’s void fraction increases, convective heat transfer is increased.