Laminar heat transfer in a parallel plate channel with solid and porous baffles

Abstract

Simulations are presented for laminar flow in a channel containing fins made with solid (impermeable) and porous materials. The equations of mass continuity, momentum and energy are written for an elementary representative volume yielding a set of equations valid for the entire computational domain. These equations are discretized using the control volume method and the resulting system of algebraic equations is relaxed with the SIMPLE method. The presented numerical results for the friction factor/and for the Nusselt number Nu were compared with available data indicating that results herein differ by less than 5% in relation to published results. Further simulations comparing the effectiveness of the porous material used showed that no advantages are obtained for using low porosity baffles in the laminar flow regime. Copyright © 2004 by ASME.