Conjugate Natural Convection in Porous Medium With a Thick Square-Wave Partition

Natural convection within a differentially heated porous enclosure is substantially affected by the presence of partition, fins, or baffles within it. However, not much is known about the effect of partition shape and size. Thus, a solid thick partition in a square-wave shape embedded within a differentially heated porous enclosure has been investigated in this numerical analysis. Through this study, it is sought to contemplate the reduction in the convection heat transfer rate that could be achieved across a differentially heated porous enclosure. The influence of partition thickness, partition amplitude, thermal conductivity ratio, and partition position has been studied. Darcy’s flow model has been solved using the successive accelerated replacement scheme by the finite difference method. One of the findings of this study suggests that lower thermal conductivity of partition, lower partition amplitude, and higher thickness results in a greater reduction in the convection heat transfer rate.