Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Mauritius, 11-13 July, 2011.
A three-dimensional numerical study based on the boundary
element method (BEM) was performed in order to study the
problem of double-diffusive natural convection within a cubic
enclosure filled with a fluid-saturated porous media, and
subjected to horizontal temperature and concentration
gradients. The fluid-flow within the porous media was modeled
using space-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, coupled with
energy and species equations. The used numerical algorithm is
based on a combination of single domain and sub-domain
BEM, and solves the velocity-vorticity formulation of the
governing equations. The influences of the main controlling
parameters, such as the porous Rayleigh number, Darcy
number, Lewis number, and the buoyancy coefficient were
investigated, by focusing on those situations, where the flowfield
becomes 3D. The results for overall heat and solutetransfer
through the porous enclosure are presented in terms of
Nusselt and Sherwood numbers as functions of the governing
parameters, and then compared to the numerical benchmarks
published in literature.
