Free convection in a square cavity filled with a bidisperse porous medium

The classical problem of steady Darcy free convection in a square cavity filled with a porous medium has been extended to the case of a bidisperse porous medium (BDPM) by following the recent model proposed by Nield and Kuznetsov [D.A. Nield, A.V. Kuznetsov, Natural convection about a vertical plate embedded in a bidisperse porous medium, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 1658-1664] and Rees et al. [D.A.S. Rees, DA. Nield, A.V. Kuznetsov, Vertical free convective boundary-layer flow in a bidisperse porous medium, ASME J. Heat Transfer 130 (2008) 1-9]. The transformed partial differential equations in terms of the dimensionless stream function and temperature are solved numerically using a finite-difference method for some values of the governing parameters when the Rayleigh number Ra is equal to 10(2) and 10(3). Results are presented for the flow field with streamlines, temperature field by isotherms and heat transfer by local and mean Nusselt numbers are presented for both the f- and p-phases. It is found that the most important parameters that influence the fluid flow and heat transfer are the inter-phase heat transfer parameter H and the modified thermal conductivity ratio parameter gamma. (C) 2009 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.