Abstract
In this paper, a computational method has been developed with multiphase-modeling to predict the 3D natural convection in porous media consisting of multiple solid particles. In the present method, the fluid-cells, which are sufficiently finer than the solid particles, are set up in the computational domain. Furthermore, in addition to the mechanical interactions between the different phases, their thermal interactions are taken into account in the present multiphase modeling. The phase-averaged governing equations, including the energy equation to predict temperature distributions, are discretized with a finite volume method and the numerical solutions are based on an SMAC method. The basic heat conduction and convection problems were solved with the present method to confirm its validity. In addition, it was applied to the natural convection arising in porous media. Through the numerical experiments, its applicability was discussed.
