Numerical Simulation of Heat and Momentum Transport at the Coupled Interface between a Rectangular Channel and Porous Media

Porous media have been extensively used for the enhancement of heat transfer, due to their large specific surface area. In many cases, the flow and heat transfer in porous media are also coupled with other flow patterns, such as the channel flow. This work investigates numerically a non-isothermal three-dimensional mixing process from a rectangular channel and a porous medium to reveal the influence of the structural parameters on the flow and heat transfer characteristics in the coupled system. The detailed heat and momentum transport behavior at the coupled interface are analyzed at the pore-scale. Correlations of the friction factor and the Nusselt number within the porous media are proposed as functions of the Reynolds number, porosity, velocity ratio, and pore size. Results from the pore-scale simulations are also used to improve the less-cost representative-elementary-volume-scale numerical model, which can be further used for the modeling of relevant engineering problems.