Theoretical and Experimental Study for Mixed Convection Heat Transfer through Sector Filled by Porous Media

Abstract

In this research a theoretical & experimental study was conducted on mixed convection heat transfer of flow through sector filled by porous media heated with an axial uniform heat flux on the side walls and thermally insulated from upper & lower surfaces. The theoretical study includes the derivation of governing equations for the flow & heat transfer through the porous media. These equations were reduced to dimensionless momentum and energy equations in which variables were (temperature, stream function and the ratio of Rayleigh to peclet numbers). These equations were solved numerically by using finite difference method & marching process. Numerical results represented by a stream function counters & isotherms for different values of Rayleigh & peclet numbers .The results shown that the radius stream circle increase & isotherms line increase far from walls when rayleigh number increased. The experimental side included study for temperature distribution & local nusselt number along thelength channel in the domain of peclet number between (53.1- 537.4) & rayleigh number between (3.4 – 299.9). The result showed that the temperature increase along the fully develop region and the decrease at the end of the channel. so the local nusselt numbers decreased and then became stable through fully developed region and the porous media has more influence on heat transfer which increase by increase in Rayleigh & peclet numbers. Also found that there is good agreement between theoretical and experimental result so the highest percentage of deviation is (10%).