Combined radiation and convection heat transfer in a porous channel bounded by isothermal parallel plates

Combined radiation and convection heat transfer in a porous medium confined between gray isothermal parallel plates is investigated. The medium is absorbing, emitting and scattering. Cases of boundaries at temperatures higher or lower than the medium are considered. In the porous medium, the boundary effect on the fully developed laminar velocity field as proposed by Kaviany is accounted for. For various values of the extinction coefficient, the scattering albedo, the conduction-radiation parameter and the boundary emissivity, Nusselt number, temperature and heat flux distributions are found for the range of values including the extreme limits of the porous medium shape parameter 1/2 (PMSP), gamma = (W(2)phi/K)(1/2), where W is the channel width, phi the porosity and K the permeability. For the lower limiting value of the PMSP gamma, the effect of the porous medium is negligible and the situation approaches that of Poiscuille flow. For this limiting case, results from the present work are compared with those available in the literature. For medium to high values of the PMSP gamma, for the purpose of comparison, some results are presented in tabular form. Radiation is found to have a significant effect on various parameters studied. The discrete transfer method was used for the solution of the radiative part of the energy equation. An iterative finite difference scheme was used to solve the energy equation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.