Numerical Analysis of Natural Convection in Porous Media Subjected to Electromagnetic Energy Using Local Thermal Nonequilibrium (LTNE) Models

The present work numerically investigates the natural convection of fluid in saturated porous media under an electromagnetic field. The porous medium consists of water and spherical solid particles. The Brinkman-Forchheimer extended Darcy model for the momentum equation is employed, and two energy equations are solved with local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) models. The study aims at a comprehensive analysis of the influence of material properties, microwave power levels, and operating frequencies on the transport processes in porous media. The results show that all effects have significant consequences on the flow field and heat transfer in porous media. These findings can explain the phenomena taking place inside saturated porous media in electromagnetic wave drying processes using LTNE and local thermal equilibrium (LTE) models.