Effect of fin position and porosity on heat transfer improvement in a plate porous media heat exchanger

In this paper, the lattice Boltzmann method was used to investigate the heat transfer enhancement in a ventilated porous media plate heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is modeled by a square cavity with inlet and outlet thermally insulated ports and three hot fins with constant temperature. The Brinkman-Forchheimer model was used to simulate the porous domain. The effect of porosity and second fin position on heat transfer enhancement was studied at different Reynolds and Prandtl numbers. By decreasing the porosity, the heat transfer rate increases and the mean outlet temperature of the fluid increases for different Reynolds and Prandtl numbers. The result indicated that the porous medium has higher effect in Nusselt number at high Reynolds and Prandtl number. Also the fin position has a sensible effect on Nusselt number. (C) 2013 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.