The effect of radiation and turbulence on heat transport in combustion in porous media

Combustion in inert porous media has been extensively investigated due to the many engineering applications and demand for developing high efficiency power production devices. The growing use of efficient radiant burners can be encountered in the power and process industries and, as such, proper mathematical models of flow, heat and mass transfer in porous media under combustion can benefit the development of such engineering equipment. This paper proposes a new mathematical model for computing temperature and flow variables inside a porous burner. A new concept called "double-decomposition" is used to represent all transported variables. A set of governing equations is presented and the numerical solution method proposed is discussed. Computations are carried out for a test case considering a simple one-energy equation model and one-step reaction rates. Simulations are presented comparing the inclusion of turbulence and radiation transfer in the model. It is shown that for high Re flows, inclusion of turbulence is as important as modeling radiation for obtaining reliable temperature distribution within the porous material.