Mixed convection through vertical porous annuli locally heated from the inner cylinder
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson (United States)
- Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins (United States)
The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence of both aiding and opposing external flows on the buoyancy-induced natural convection in vertical porous annuli. The effects of radius ratio are taken into account in a numerical study. Measurements of heat transfer coefficients in aiding and opposing flows cover the free to forced convective heat transfer regimes. Mixed convection in a vertical annulus filled with a saturated porous medium is numerically and experimentally investigated. Calculations are carried out under the traditional Darcy assumptions and cover the ranges 10 {le} Ra {le} 200 and 0.01 {le} Pe {le} 200. Both numerical and experimental results show that the Nusselt number increases with either Ra or Pe when the imposed flow is in the same direction as the buoyancy-induced flow. When the imposed flow opposes buoyancy-induced flow, the Nusselt number first decreases with an increase of the Peclet number and reaches a minimum before increasing again. Under certain circumstances, the Nusselt number for a lower Rayleigh number may exceed that for larger value. Nusselt numbers are correlated by the parameter groups Nu/Pe{sup 1/2} and Ra/Pe{sup 3/2}. Good agreement exists between measured and predicted Nusselt numbers, and the occurrence of a minimum Nusselt number in mean flow that opposes buoyancy is verified experimentally.
- OSTI ID:
- 5020244
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Heat Transfer (Transactions of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), Series C); (United States), Vol. 114:1; ISSN 0022-1481
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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