Large-eddy simulation of fluid mixing in tee with sintered porous medium

Mixing processes of hot and cold fluids in a tee with and without sintered copper spheres are simulated by FLUENT using the large-eddy simulation (LES) turbulent flow model and the sub-grid scale (SGS) Smagorinsky-Lilly (SL) model with buoyancy. Comparisons of numerical results of the two cases with and without sintered copper spheres show that the porous medium significantly reduces velocity and temperature fluctuations because the porous medium can effectively restrict the fluid flow and enhance heat transfer. The porous medium obviously increases the pressure drop in the main duct. The porous medium reduces the power spectrum density (PSD) of temperature fluctuations in the frequency range from 1 Hz to 10 Hz.