Modelling of coupled heat and moisture transfer in porous construction materials

In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed for predicting air temperature and humidity in a two-room region. The model contains a coupled relationship between temperature and humidity within the constructions and can be solved by using the numerical method. However, the two-room region can be reduced to a single region when the region with no ventilation is considered, and then the room temperature and relative humidity can be obtained analytically. The solution obtained in this paper is verified by comparing with the result of the analytical method. It shows that the two results are in agreement. In addition, the proposed model can also be applied to simultaneously obtain the transient temperature and humidity of a two-room region for different porous construction materials.     

Selfsimilar solutions of the problem of heat and mass transfer in a saturated porous medium with a volume heat source

Selfsimilar solutions of a system of stationary equations of heat condunction and filtration of molten material in the presence of a volume heat source generated by absorption of the energy of electromagnetic radiation, are considered. The possibility of the existence of a self-similar solution in the case of various (plane, cylindrical and spherical) spatial symmetries is studied. The existence of a selfsimilar solution is shown for the axisymmetric case when the radiation obeys a prescribed law. The influence of the surface volume heating and convective heat transfer due to filtration is studied. A solution for the case when the filtration of the molten phase is quasistationary is also investigated.     

Retracted: Unsteady flow and heat transfer on a rotating disk in a porous medium

This article has been retracted. See retraction notice DOI: 10.1002/mma.850 . An unsteady flow and heat transfer in a porous medium of a viscous incompressible fluid over a rotating disk in an otherwise ambient fluid are studied. The unsteadiness in the flow field is caused by the angular velocity of the disk which varies with time. The new self‐similar solution of the Navier–Stokes and energy equations is obtained numerically. The solution obtained here is not only the solution of the Navier–Stokes equations, but also of the boundary layer equations. Also, for a simple scaling factor, it represents the solution of the flow and heat transfer in the forward stagnation‐point region of a rotating sphere or over a rotating cone. The asymptotic behaviour of the solution for a large porosity or for a large independent variable is also examined. The surface shear stresses in the radial and tangential directions and the surface heat transfer increase as the acceleration parameter increases. Also, the surface shear stress in the radial direction and the surface heat transfer decrease with increasing porosity, but the surface shear stress in the tangential direction increases. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Peristaltic transport of a Newtonian fluid in a vertical asymmetric channel with heat transfer and porous medium

The problem of peristaltic flow of a Newtonian fluid with heat transfer in a vertical asymmetric channel through porous medium is studied under long-wavelength and low-Reynolds number assumptions. The flow is examined in a wave frame of reference moving with the velocity of the wave. The channel asymmetry is produced by choosing the peristaltic wave train on the walls to have different amplitudes and phase. The analytical solution has been obtained in the form of temperature from which an axial velocity, stream function and pressure gradient have been derived. The effects of permeability parameter, Grashof number, heat source/sink parameter, phase difference, varying channel width and wave amplitudes on the pressure gradient, velocity, pressure drop, the phenomenon of trapping and shear stress are discussed numerically and explained graphically.     

SPH modelling of fluid at the grain level in a porous medium

Computational modelling of the flow of fluids in porous media has traditionally been at a macroscopic level where the medium’s permeability and porosity are an input (from experiments for example). In many cases this is difficult, especially if the porous medium changes its solid structure as a function of time. This situation occurs in reactive systems such as “heap-leaching”, where biological and/or chemical solutions are introduced into the heap to dissolve or react with valuable materials. In this case, modelling fluid flow at the grain level is paramount and we show how this can be done with the SPH technique. We present three-dimensional SPH simulations of fluid flow in an idealised porous medium and show that the technique yields flows which are physically realistic. The permeability of the medium is then predicted.     

Analytic approximate solutions for heat transfer of a micropolar fluid through a porous medium with radiation

This paper aims to present complete analytic solution to heat transfer of a micropolar fluid through a porous medium with radiation. Homotopy analysis method (HAM) has been used to get accurate and complete analytic solution. The analytic solutions of the system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations are constructed in the series form. The convergence of the obtained series solutions is carefully analyzed. The velocity and temperature profiles are shown and the influence of coupling constant, permeability parameter and the radiation parameter on the heat transfer is discussed in detail. The validity of our solutions is verified by the numerical results (fourth-order Runge–Kutta method and shooting method).     

Rotating disk flow and heat transfer through a porous medium of a non-Newtonian fluid with suction and injection

The steady flow of an incompressible viscous non-Newtonian fluid above an infinite rotating porous disk in a porous medium is studied with heat transfer. A uniform injection or suction is applied through the surface of the disk. Numerical solutions of the non-linear differential equations which govern the hydrodynamics and energy transfer are obtained. The effect of the porosity of the medium, the characteristics of the non-Newtonian fluid and the suction or injection velocity on the velocity and temperature distributions is considered. The inclusion of the three effects, the porosity, the non-Newtonian characteristics, and the suction or injection velocity together has shown some interesting effects.     

Mathematical modelling of heat transfer in a catalytic reformer

In this work we analyse heat transfer in a system of channelsconnected by thin conducting walls. The channels are packedwith catalytic pellets that promote exothermic catalytic combustionreactions and endothermic reforming reactions in adjacent channels.A model is developed in which the thermal conductivity and thethickness of the interconnecting wall can be used as controlparameters characterizing the heat exchange between the neighbouringchannels. The model is to be used as a mathematical tool toanalyse design alternatives and develop accurate numerical techniques.Our objective is to study how the heat is transferred acrossthe conducting walls and how this influences the temperaturedistribution in the channels. We use an asymptotic techniqueto do this. The structure of the walls is then examined in detail,focusing on the case when we have layered walls.     

Effect of wall properties on the magnetohydrodynamic peristaltic flow of a Maxwell fluid with heat transfer and porous medium

The elastic effect of the flexible walls is analyzed on the peristaltic motion of Maxwell fluid in a channel with heat transfer. An incompressible and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) fluid fills the porous space. The series solution of the modeled problem is derived by considering small wave number. The influence of pertinent parameters is shown and discussed with the help of graphs. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2010     

Effects of Hall current and heat transfer on rotating flow of a second grade fluid through a porous medium

The effects of Hall current and heat transfer on the rotating flow of a second grade fluid past a porous plate with variable suction are examined. The medium considered is porous and suction and external flow velocities vary periodically. The plate is assumed to be at a higher temperature than the fluid. The influences of the Hall parameter and porosity of the medium have been seen and discussed on the velocity and temperature profiles. Moreover, these influences have also been seen on the drag and lateral stress. Finally, the obtained solutions are also compared with the previous studies in the literature and found quite agreement.     

Magnetohydrodynamic non-Darcy mixed convection heat transfer from a vertical heated plate embedded in a porous medium with variable porosity

A numerical model is developed to study magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) mixed convection from a heated vertical plate embedded in a Newtonian fluid saturated sparsely packed porous medium by considering the variation of permeability, porosity and thermal conductivity. The boundary layer flow in the porous medium is governed by Forchheimer–Brinkman extended Darcy model. The conservation equations that govern the problem are reduced to a system of non-linear ordinary differential equations by using similarity transformations. Because of non-linearity, the governing equations are solved numerically. The effects of magnetic field on velocity and temperature distributions are studied in detail by considering uniform permeability (UP) and variable permeability (VP) of the porous medium and the results are discussed graphically. Besides, skin friction and Nusselt number are also computed for various physical parameters governing the problem under consideration. It is found that the inertial parameter has a significant influence in increasing the flow field and the rate of heat transfer for variable permeability case. The important finding of the present work is that the magnetic field has considerable effects on the boundary layer velocity and on the rate of heat transfer for variable permeability of the porous medium. Further, the results obtained under the limiting conditions were found to be in good agreement with the existing ones.     

Finite element analysis of hydromagnetic flow and heat transfer of a heat generation fluid over a surface embedded in a non-Darcian porous medium in the presence of chemical reaction

An analysis is carried out to study the flow, chemical reaction and mass transfer of a steady laminar boundary layer of an electrically conducting and heat generating fluid driven by a continuously moving porous surface embedded in a non-Darcian porous medium in the presence of a transfer magnetic field. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by similarity transformation and are solved numerically by using the finite element method. The results obtained are presented graphically for velocity, temperature and concentration profiles, as well as the Sherwood number for various parameters entering into the problem.     

Natural convective boundary-layer flow in a heat generating porous medium with a prescribed wall heat flux

The free convection boundary-layer flow on a vertical surface in a porous medium with local heat generation proportional to (T – T_∞)^p, where T is the local temperature and T_∞ is the ambient temperature, is considered when the surface is thermally insulated. The way in which the flow develops from the leading edge is seen to depend critically on the exponent p. For p ≤ 2 there is a boundary-layer flow for all x > 0, where x measures distance from the leading edge, with the internal heating having a significant effect at large x. For p ≥ 5 there is also a boundary-layer flow to large x but now the internal heating has an increasingly weaker effect as x increases. For 2 < p <  5 the boundary-layer solution breaks down at a finite x, with a singularity developing leading to thermal runaway at a finite distance along the surface.     

Natural convective boundary-layer flow in a heat generating porous medium with a prescribed wall heat flux

The free convection boundary-layer flow on a vertical surface in a porous medium with local heat generation proportional to (T – T_∞)^p, where T is the local temperature and T_∞ is the ambient temperature, is considered when the surface is thermally insulated. The way in which the flow develops from the leading edge is seen to depend critically on the exponent p. For p ≤ 2 there is a boundary-layer flow for all x > 0, where x measures distance from the leading edge, with the internal heating having a significant effect at large x. For p ≥ 5 there is also a boundary-layer flow to large x but now the internal heating has an increasingly weaker effect as x increases. For 2 < p <  5 the boundary-layer solution breaks down at a finite x, with a singularity developing leading to thermal runaway at a finite distance along the surface.     

A singular-degenerate free boundary problem arising from the moisture evaporation in a partially saturated porous medium

Summary We consider a moisture evaporation process in a porous medium which is partially saturated by a fluid. The mathematical model is a singular-degenerate nonlinear parabolic free boundary problem. We first transform the problem into a weak form in a fixed domain and then derive some uniform estimates for the proper approximate solution. The existence of a weak solution is established by a compactness argument. Finally, the regularity of the solution and interfaces are investigated.     

Effect of variable viscosity on MHD non-Darcy mixed convective heat transfer over a stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium with non-uniform heat source/sink

An analysis has been presented to investigate the effect of temperature-dependent viscosity on non-Darcy MHD mixed convective heat transfer past a porous medium by taking into account of Ohmic dissipation and non-uniform heat source/sink. Thermal boundary layer equation takes into account of viscous dissipation and Ohmic dissipation due to transverse magnetic field and electric field. The governing fundamental equations are first transformed into system of ordinary differential equations using self-similarity transformation and are solved numerically by using the fifth-order Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg method with shooting technique for various values of the physical parameters. The effects of variable viscosity, porosity, Eckert number, Prandtl number, magnetic field, electric field and non-uniform heat source/sink parameters on velocity and temperature profiles are analyzed and discussed. Favorable comparisons with previously published work on various special cases of the problem are obtained. Numerical results on the development of the local skin-friction co-efficient and local Nusselt number with non-uniform heat source/sink are tabulated for various physical parameters to show the interesting aspects of the solution.     

Textile porosity determination based on a nonlinear heat and moisture transfer model

The inverse problems of textile materials design on heat and moisture transfer properties are important and indispensable in applications in the body-clothing-environment system. We present an inverse problem of textile porosity determination (IPTPD) based on a nonlinear heat and moisture transfer model. Adopting the idea of the least-squares, the mathematical formulation of IPTPD is deduced to a regularized optimization problem with collocation method applied. The continuity of the regularized minimization problem is proved. By means of genetic algorithm (GA), the approximate solution of the IPTPD is numerically obtained. To reduce the computational cost, an improved algorithm based on BP neural network with GA is proposed in the numerical simulation. Compared with the direct GA searching, the computational cost is greatly reduced, which presents a similar result.