EFFECT OF A THIN FIN ON NATURAL CONVECTION HEAT TRANSFER IN A THERMALLY STRATIFIED POROUS LAYER

Effect of a thin fin on natural convection heat transfer in a thermally stratified porous layer is analyzed in this study. For this purpose, the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equationsare solved numerically adopting a control-volume based computational procedure. Computationsare undertaken for several numerical values of the fin length and its position in various circumstances with different Rayleigh numbers, stratification parameters, and aspect ratios of theporous layer. Simulation results are compared in terms of distributions of streamlines and isothermal lines as well as numerical values of the average Nusselt number on the hot wall. It is found that the thin fin is of profound influences on the establishment of flow and thermal fields and possesses prominent consequences on heat transfer characteristics.