Influence of Property Variation on Natural Convection in a Gas Saturated Spherical Porous Annulus

The present study reports results of numerical investigation of natural convection in a spherical annulus filled with gas saturated porous medium. Boussinesq approximation has been relaxed considering variation of density, viscosity, and thermal conductivity of the gas with temperature. The momentum and energy equation along with boundary condition and property variation equations are solved by employing successive accelerated replacement scheme. There exists a reference parameter (q = 0.4) at which if thermo physical properties are evaluated, the average Nusselt number values for variable properties and constant properties are nearly same. Also, the effect of variable properties is negligible for temperature difference ratio, theta* < 0.1.