Analysis of Energy and Momentum Transport for Fluid Flow Through a Porous Bed

This paper presents an analysis for the forced convective flow of a gas through a packed bed of spherical solid particles, and the associated heat transport processes. Ergun’s correlation was used as the vapor phase momentum equation in order to account for the inertia effects as well as the viscous effects. No local thermal equilibrium was assumed between the solid and the vapor phases. A thorough discussion of the thermal interactions between the solid and vapor phases and their effects on the fluid flow as well as the pressure and density fields is presented. The analysis shows that the local thermal equilibrium condition was very sensitive to the particle Reynolds number (Re_p) and the Darcy number (Da) while thermophysical properties did not have a very significant effect on this condition. On the other hand, two-dimensional behavior of certain variables was found to be very sensitive to thermophysical parameters but insensitive to Re_p and Da.