Study on fluid-solid coupling heat transfer in fractal porous medium by lattice Boltzmann method

A lattice Boltzmann model is applied to simulate fluid-solid coupling heat transfer in fractal porous medium. The numerical simulation is conducted to investigate the influences of pressure drop and porosity on fluid flows and the effect of thermal conductivity ratio of solid matrix to fluid on heat transfer. The simulation results indicate that fluid flows still obey Darcy's Law in the range of flow and pressure level in this paper, and that both velocity field and temperature evolution conform to the local structural characteristics of porous medium. The comparison of temperature results from lattice Boltzmann model against those from the finite-volume method (FVM, one of the conventional CFD methods) is also presented to demonstrate the reliability of LBM. The present results agree well with those from FVM, All these indicate the feasibility and the reliability for the lattice Boltzmann model to be used to reveal the phenomenon and rules of fluid-solid coupling heat transfer in complex porous structures. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.