Study of buoyancy driven free convective flow of a micropolar fluid through a darcy-forchheimer porous medium with mutable thermal conductivity

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the natural convection flow, heat and mass transfer of an incompressible micropolar fluid between two vertical parallel plates containing a Darcy-Forchheimer porous medium. Asymmetric wall temperatures and concentrations are present and take into account a temperature-dependent thermal conductivity. The transformed equations for linear momentum, angular momentum, energy and species have been solved numerically using the finite element method. The effects of Darcy number (Da), Forchheimer number (Fs), Grashof number (Gr) and thermal conductivity parameter (S) on the velocity, angular velocity and temperature profiles have been studied in detail. The numerical results indicate that velocity and angular velocity (micro-rotation) increase as the Darcy number increases but they are reduced with increasing Forchheimer parameter, Grashof number and thermal conductivity parameter. Moreover, the thermal conductivity parameter increases as the temperature decreases. The effect of vortex viscosity parameter, R, on the volume flow rate, the total heat rate and the total species rate added to the fluid has also been examined. The effect of thermal conductivity parameter, S, on heat transfer rate has also been studied. A comparison with another method has also been presented and has been found to be well in agreement.