Conjugate natural convection in a vertical porous layer sandwiched by finite thickness walls

Steady conjugate natural convection in two-dimensional vertical porous layer sandwiched between two equal-thickness walls is studied numerically in the present article. The horizontal heating is considered, where the outer surfaces of the vertical walls are isothermal at different temperatures with adiabatic horizontal boundaries. The Darcy model is used in the mathematical formulation for the porous layer and finite volume method is used to solve the dimensionless governing equations. The governing parameters considered are the ratio of the wall thickness to its height, the wall to porous thermal conductivity ratio and the Rayleigh number. The results are presented to show the effect of these parameters on the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics.