Journal of ChemicalBahadori Technology Fatemeh, and Sima Metallurgy, Rezvantalab 50, 1, 2015, 35-38 VISCOSITY VARIATION EFFECTS ON HEAT TRANSFER AND FLUID FLOW THROUGH TWO-LAYERED POROUS MEDIA Bahadori Fatemeh, Sima Rezvantalab Chemical Engineering Department, Received 10 June 2014 Urmia University of Technology, Urmia, Iran Accepted 24 November 2014 E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT Temperature dependent viscosity effects on natural convection in a composite cavity, isothermally heated from below and cooled from the opposing surface, are analyzed. The two-layered porous media was composed of two regions with different permeability. It is observed that viscosity reduction, due to temperature rising, affects heat transfer rate and fluid motion at the interface. Keywords: two layered porous media, viscosity, heat transfer, permeability ratio (Kr), streamline. INTRODUCTION tion for calculation of the overall Nusselt number for N horizontal sub layers. Lai and Kulacki [13] discussed Heat transfer in porous media has been extensively convection in a vertically divided rectangular cavity, of studied due to its numerous engineering and environ- the right hand side wall which was heated with constant mental applications. Oil recovery, underground spread heat flux. of pollutants, grain storage, geothermal systems, solar Egorov and Polezhaev [14] investigated a theoretical power collectors, optimal design of furnaces, compact model and showed that their numerical results are in the heat exchangers, packed-bed catalytic reactors and pas- line of their experimental data for multilayer insulation. sive thermal control devices are examples of applications In addition, Merrikh and Mohamad [15], Belghazi et al. of heat transfer in porous media. [16] and Ordo´n˜ez-Miranda and Alvarado-Gil [17] and Studies concerning natural convection in porous others, have investigated multilayered porous media.