Natural convection and radiation in porous fins

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a numerical study of the convection heat transfer in porous media by the homotopy analysis method (HAM). The geometry considered is that of a rectangular profile fin. The porous fin allows the flow to infiltrate through it and solid-fluid interaction takes place. This study is performed using Darcy’s model to formulate heat transfer equation. To study the thermal performance, three types of cases are considered namely long fin, finite length fin with insulated tip and finite length fin with tip exposed. The theory section addresses the derived governing equation. The effects of the porosity parameter Sh, radiation parameter G and temperature ratio CT on the dimensionless temperature distribution and heat transfer rate are discussed. The results suggest that the radiation transfers more heat than a similar model without radiation. The auxiliary parameter in the HAM is derived by using the averaged residual error concept which significantly reduces the computational time. The use of optimal auxiliary parameter provides a superior control on the convergence and accuracy of the analytic solution.

Darcy model, Homotopy analysis method, Natural convection, Optimal convergence-control parameter, Porous fin, Radiation