Influence of heat transfer process in porous media with air cavity- A CFD analysis

Paper in proceeding, 2017

Investigating the heat transfer in porous media is of interest, since a deeper understanding of this phenomenon can be used to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. Heat can be transferred in three ways: conduction, convection and radiation. All these three mechanisms are always present and needs to be taken into account. The forces generated by density gradients in the earth's gravitational field, leads to the so-called natural convective heat transfer, both in fluid and porous media. The presence of temperature gradients, when reaching a certain temperature difference, gives rise to fluid and thermal motion due to the natural convective process. The ability to simulate and compute the combined effects of heat transfer due to conduction, natural convection and radiation are therefore of paramount interest, in order to design the future environmentally friendly, energy efficient and healthy buildings. In this study, the heat transfer through a porous region, representing a layer of insulation, with an air cavity above has been numerically investigated with the help of CFD. The numerical results obtained are validated with experimental results.