Mixed Convection Through Vertical Porous Annuli Locally Heated From the Inner Cylinder

Mixed convection in a vertical annulus filled with a saturated porous medium is numerically and experimentally investigated. Calculations are carried out under the traditional Darcy assumptions and cover the ranges 10 ≤ Ra ≤ 200 and 0.01 ≤ Pe ≤ 200. Both numerical and experimental results show that the Nusselt number increases with either Ra or Pe when the imposed flow is in the same direction as the buoyancy-induced flow. When the imposed flow opposes buoyancy-induced flow, the Nusselt number first decreases with an increase of the Peclet number and reaches a minimum before increasing again. Under certain circumstances, the Nusselt number for a lower Rayleigh number may exceed that for larger value. Nusselt numbers are correlated by the parameter groups Nu/Pe^1/2 and Ra/Pe^3/2. Good agreement exists between measured and predicted Nusselt numbers, and the occurrence of a minimum Nusselt number in mean flow that opposes buoyancy is verified experimentally.