Experimental Studies on Heat Transfer in Saturated Porous Media with Thermal Convection

Studies on heat transfer in porous media (III)

Abstract

Thermal convection due to differences in temperature in saturated porous media has been analyzed in general using the Boussinesq assumption and discussed in terms of the Rayleigh number or the aspect ratio. The results showed convection cell symmetry. However, a few works which had variable properties of density and dynamic viscosity with respect to temperature into consideration demonstrate that the shape of convection cells must be asymmetric. This paper deals with the characteristic properties of thermal convection using laboratory experiments in which tracer techniques were employed for the first time to obtain thermal convection trajectories. By number of experiments for the thermal convection performed, non-Boussinesq effect was also investigated.