Analytical Solution of Nonequilibrium Heat Conduction in Porous Medium Incorporating a Variable Porosity Model With Heat Generation

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the conduction heat transfer between two parallel plates filled with a porous medium with uniform heat generation under a nonequilibrium condition. Analytical solution is obtained for both fluid and solid temperature fields at constant porosity incorporating the effects of thermal conductivity ratio, porosity, and a nondimensional heat transfer coefficient at pore level. The two coupled energy equations for the case of variable porosity condition are transformed into a third order ordinary equation for each phase, which is solved numerically. This transformation is a valuable solution for heat conduction regime for any distribution of porosity in the channel. The effects of the variable porosity on temperature distribution are shown and compared with the constant porosity model. For the case of the exponential decaying porosity distribution, the numerical results lead to a correlation incorporating conductivity ratio and interstitial heat transfer coefficient.