Effects of thermal dispersion on transient free convective flow in vertical porous channel filled with porous material

Abstract

In this work, the effect of suction/injection on transient free convective flow in vertical porous (suction/injection on the channel surfaces) channel filled with porous material in the presence of thermal dispersion was studied. The Boussinesq assumption is applied and the nonlinear governing equations of motion and energy are developed. The time dependent problem is solved using implicit finite difference method while steady state problem is solved by perturbation technique method. The solution obtained is graphically represented and the effects of suction/injection, time, Darcy number, thermal dispersion, and Prandtl number on the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics. During the course of computation, an excellent agreement was found between the well-known steady state solutions sand transient solutions at large value of time. Furthermore, the time required to reach steady state velocity and temperature field strongly dependent on suction/injection parameter, Prandtl number and thermal dispersion parameter. The introduction of suction/injection has distorted the symmetric nature of the flow formation.