Nanofluid flow and heat transfer in a Brinkman porous channel with variable porosity

Abstract

The problem of forced convection in a channel filled with a nanofluidsaturated porous medium is investigated, numerically. A finite difference Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model with structured uniform grid system is employed to solve the momentum and energy equations. In modeling flow in the channel, the effects of flow inertia, variable porosity and Brinkman friction are taken into account. Studies are carried out for different nanoparticles with different volume fractions in the range 0%-4% and different nanoparticle diameters. Comparison made between our numerical and semi analytical Differential Transform Method (DTM) results with those in previous published research is found to be appropriate. Results show that increasing either nanoparticls volume fraction or pressure gradient parameter improves heat transfer. Further, for large quantities of nanoparticle concentration and pressure gradient, the channeling phenomenon is intensified.