Unsteady Conjugate Natural Convection in a Vertical Cylinder Partially Filled with a Porous Medium

Transient natural convection in a vertical cylinder containing both a fluid layer overlying a horizontal porous layer saturated with the same fluid and heat-conducting solid shell of finite thickness in conditions of convective heat exchange with an environment has been studied numerically. The Beavers-Joseph empirical boundary condition is considered at the fluid-porous interface with the Darcy model for the porous layer and the Boussinesq approximation for the pure fluid. The governing equations formulated in dimensionless variables, such as the stream function, the vorticity, and the temperature have been solved by a finite difference method. Particular efforts have been focused on the effects of five types of influential factors, such as the Darcy number 10(-5) <= Da <= 10(-3), the porous layer height ratio 0 <= d/L <= 1, the solid shell thickness ratio 0.1 <= l/L <= 0.3, the thermal conductivity ratio 1 <= k(1,3) <= 20, and the dimensionless time 0 <= tau <= 1000 on the fluid flow and heat transfer. Comprehensive analysis of an effect of these key parameters on the Nusselt number at the bottom wall, on the average temperature in the cavity, and on the maximum absolute value of the stream function has been conducted.