Steady Natural Convection Flow of a Particulate Suspension Through a Parallel-Plate Channel

A continuum model for two-phase (fluid/particle) flow induced by natural convection is developed and applied to the problem of steady natural convention flow of a particulate suspension through an infinitely long channel. The walls of the channel are maintained at constant but different temperatures. The two-phase model accounts for particle-phase viscous effects. Boundary conditions borrowed from rarefied gas dynamics are employed for the particle-phase wall conditions. Various closed-form solutions for different special cases are obtained. A parametric study of the physical parameters involved in the problem are performed to illustrate the influence of these parameters on the flow and heat transfer aspects of the problem.