PSEUDOSTEADY-STATE NATURAL CONVECTION INSIDE SPHERICAL CONTAINERS PARTIALLYFILLED WITH A POROUS MEDIUM

摘要

A computational study of the pseudosteady-state two-dimensional natural convection within spherical containers partially filled with a porous medium is presented. The computations are based on an iterative, finite-volume numerical procedure using primitive dependent variables, whereby the time-dependent continutity, momentum and energy equations in the spherical coordinate system are solved within the composite system. The natural convection effect is modeled via the Boussinesq approximation, whereas the Darcy Law is utilized to treat the porous medium. For a reference case, flow and temperature field details during the transient evolution to the pseudosteady-state are presented.