A Study of Porous Fin Effect on Increasing Free Convection Heat Transfer Rate in a Square Enclosure

In the present study the effect of porous fin on increasing free convection heat transfer rate in a square enclosure is studied numerically. The left wall of the cavity, to which the fin is attached, is assumed to be kept at higher temperature while the right wall is kept at a lower temperature. In addition, the horizontal walls of the cavity were considered insulated. Various pertinent parameters were employed, such as the Rayleigh number, Darcy number, fin inclination angle, porosity, length and position of the fin. CFD method is used to solve the governing equations of this problem. The results is reported in term of Nusselt number. The results of this investigation showed that the presence of a porous fin increases the average Nusselt number on hot wall when compared with the cavity without any fin, for various lengths, positions, and inclination angle of the fin. To achieve optimum heat transfer, the present results suggests that the porous fin should be placed either close to the bottom surface or in the middle of the vertical hot surface and an angle of 90 degree. The results also demonstrate that the increase in porous fin length will result in an increase in the average Nusselt number. It is also observed that increasing the porosity of the fin will increase the average Nusselt number of the hot wall.