Numerical Investigation of Natural Convection in an Enclosure Filled with Porous Medium Under Magnetic Field

Abstract

In this study, natural convection in an enclosure filled with a fluid-saturated porous medium in a strong magnetic field is investigated numerically. Two physical models are considered. One is heated from the bottom and cooled from the top (Model A), and the other is heated from the left side vertical wall and cooled from the opposite wall (Model B). An electric coil is set below this enclosure to generate a magnetic field. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model is used to solve the momentum equations, and the energy equations for the fluid and solid are solved with the local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model. The linkage between velocity and pressure is handled with the SIMPLE algorithm. Computations are performed for a range of Darcy number from 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻¹, Rayleigh number from 10³ to 10⁵, and magnetic force parameter γ from 0 to 100. The results show that the magnetic force has significant effect on the flow field and heat transfer in the fluid-saturated porous medium.

We would like to acknowledge financial support of this work provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50521604).