Flow and heat transfer of composite porous medium saturated with nanofluid

J.C. Umavathi ^*, K. Hemavathi    

Department of Mathematics, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga 585106, Karnataka, India

Abstract: The present article is concerned with the heat transfer of nanofluid saturated with porous medium sandwiched between clear viscous fluid filled in a vertical channel. The model is developed to analyze the behavior of nanofluids taking into account the solid volume fraction. The governing equations are obtained based on the Darcy’s law for the porous medium and Tiwari and Das model to define the nanofluid. The viscous and Darcy dissipation terms are included in the energy equation. The transformed dimensionless governing equations are solved analytically using regular perturbation. Investigations are carried out on the flow characteristics for different values of Grashof number, Brinkman number, solid volume fraction and porous parameter using water as base fluid and copper as nanoparticle. Flow and heat transfer are also observed using five different types of nanoparticles. It is found that the maximum value of Nusselt number is obtained for Silver-nanoparticle.                                        

Keywords: Nanofluid; Porous matrix; Viscous fluid; Vertical channel