Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media

Forced Convective Drying of 3-D Moist Objects: Experimental Facility and CFD-Mass
Transfer Modeling

Velocity profile over a moist object

Inlet

Isotherms

Isotherm at t = 500 sec

Moisture Content at t = 500 sec

Moist Object
Convective drying is a process of thermally removing volatile liquid from moist objects such as food
stuffs, ceramic products, clay products, wood etc. We are developing a 3D heat and mass transfer
model which will be coupled to a CFD code. This model will be able to predict the drying time

required for different Reynolds numbers and other drying conditions. All kinds of objects can be
modeled with different orientations and positions. These moist objects will be placed in front of a
hot and dry stream of air to predict the transient moisture content and temperature distribution. An
experimental facility will be built to validate the numerical model developed.

Radiation in Participating Media

Radiation modeling with a heat source in three dimensional enclosures with convective
boundary condition
Radiative heat transfer in participating media is a complex phenomenon. We are using discrete
ordinates method to solve the radiative transfer equations. We have modeled a heat source of conical
shape to represent a flame. In the walls, we have considered a convective boundary conditions to
represent the water wall in a boiler.
358
357
355

Tw (W/m )

356
354
353

Temperature profiles
at the wall for
different extinction
coefficient

352
351

= 0.5

=1

350

=2

=5

349

Heat generation zone

representing a flame in a
combustion chamber

Isotherms in a center plane

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Z (m)

Isotherms in the water wall

Fluid flow and Heat Transfer in internal flows:

Effect of radiation in a flow through a parallel plate channel

No radiation, only
forced convection

Radiation and forced

convection with an
absorbing-emitting gas

Mixed convection in a triangular duct

The block
structured grid
used in the
simulation

30
25
20
Nuz

Heat transfer
enhancement
because of buoyancy
force showing with
effect of Rayleigh
number Ra on local
Nusselt number

Ra = 0
Ra = 2E3
Ra = 2E4
Ra = 1E5
Ra = 2E5
Ra = 1E6
Series7

15
10
5
0
0.001

Contours of secondery
velocity profile at a
particular location for
Ra = 1E5 showing the effect
of buoyancy

2.47 line

0.01

Z/(RePrDh)

0.1

Enhancement of Heat Transfer with porous inserts

Enhancement of combined convective and radiative heat transfer has become increasingly important in
developing compact and efficient high temperature thermal energy systems. Enhancement study of heat
transfer in a gas flow through duct is done by installing a solid or a porous plate in the flow stream. The
surface of the plate receives heat from gas by convection and emits radiation to the facing heat absorbing
surface. This results in a subsequent increase in heat transfer and the solid/porous plate is termed as
convection to radiation convertor (C-R-C). Porous materials have large surface area per unit volume and they
usually possess a much stronger thermal radiation emittance than the emittance of the gaseous fluid.

Inlet

Porous Plate

Velocity contour

Isotherms

Duct without insert considering

radiation
Duct with solid insert considering
radiation
Duct with porous insert considering
radiation

Dimensionless
bulk mean temperature

1
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0

Dimensionless z

10

Development of an algorithm for inverse problem of forced convection

and gas radiation in duct flows

The main objective is to generate a software package for inverse heat transfer problems
The algorithm for inverse heat transfer analysis will be coupled to a CFD source code
This will facilitate to solve practical heat transfer problems with complex geometries
The inverse algorithm will primarily focus on the determination of unknown boundary
conditions which are commonly known as boundary design problem

Estimation of boundary heat flux of a two-dimensional rectangular duct

Unknown

q(x,t)

u(y,z)
Tin

H
Thermocouples

h
L

Insulated/constant temperature