Thermal Convection in a Rectangular Cavity Filled With a Heat-Generating, Darcy Porous Medium
Two-dimensional, steady natural convection in a rectangular cavity filled with a heat-generating, saturated porous medium has been studied numerically for the case when the vertical walls of the cavity are isothermal and the horizontal walls are either adiabatic or cold. Results are presented in terms of the streamlines and isotherms, the maximum temperature in the cavity, and the local and overall Nusselt numbers. The buoyant flow together with the uniform heat generation produces a highly stratified medium at high Rayleigh numbers. Although the maximum temperature in the cavity θmax invariably increases with the Rayleigh number Ra and aspect ratio A, the rate of increase diminishes with this enhancement in Ra and A. However, the change in the horizontal wall boundary condition from adiabatic to cold reduces θmax. The local heat flux on the bounding walls is a strong function of the Rayleigh number, the aspect ratio, and the wall boundary conditions. The variation in overall Nusselt number is qualitatively similar to that observed in the case of a differentially heated cavity, and the present heat transfer rates are close to that for the cavity heated by applying a uniform heat flux. Several correlations are presented for maximum temperature and overall Nusselt number.