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[Fluid flow in cylindrical channel filled with porous medium] MOTA group (2011)

The incompressible fluid flow in cylindrical channel filled with porous medium is numerically investigated. The porous medium is
made of packed bed of spherical particles (dp=20mm) inserted directly at the center of the model. The inflow velocity is assumed to be fully-
developed. The Navier-Stokes equation is employed for conventional pipe flow region (A and C), whereas the porous region (B) is solved
numerically using Brinkman equation (1947). The out flow section is assumed to be neglecting in normal stress, in which resulting in zero
pressure at the outlet of pipe. It must be noted that employing this boundary condition show no significant different in pressure drop as compared
to the case of ambient pressure at the outlet. The channel wall boundaries are assumed to be smooth pipe with no-slip condition. The advance
numerical technique is applied to solve the corresponding momentum equation to find the influence of Reynolds number and porosity on velocity
and pressure. The schematic diagram of the model is illustrated in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 the schematic diagram of the model
Model validation
The pressure drop in porous medium obtain from the model is
compared with the Ergun equation (1952) as illustrated in Fig. 4,
and the discrepancy between those two is less than five percent.
This proof that that the numerical model presented in this work is
efficient to predict the fluid flow phenomena in the channel filled
with porous medium.
The velocity field
As illustrated in Fig. 3, he presence of porous medium at the center
of the channel laminarizes the fully-developed flow, and change its
velocity profile to become relatively low uniform flow. However,
the flow begins to develop again after pass the porous region.
Effect of Reynolds number
The influence of Reynolds number on pressure distribution is
shown in Fig 4. As expect, with increasing in Reynolds number,
the pressure drop in porous region is dramatically increased.
Effect of porosity
As illustrated in Fig 5, the uniformed effect of porous medium on
velocity profiles is gradually vanished by the increasing in
porosity.

Fig 2 Velocity contour with (Left) no porous, (Center) porosity =
0.4, and (Right) porosity = 0.8
Reynolds number, Re
D
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

d
r
o
p
,

o
P
0.0
.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Ergun, S. (1952)
This model
c=0.4, d
p
= 20mm
T
f
= 30
o
C
Ergun Equation:

Fig. 2 Model validation
Distance, x (m)
0.00 .05 .10 .15 .20 .25 .30 .35 .40 .45 .50 .55 .60 .65
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
P
a
)
0.0
.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
Re
D
=25
Re
D
=50
Re
D
=100
Re
D
=200
Re
D
=300
Re
D
=400
c=0.4, d
p
= 20mm
T
f
= 30
o
C
Porous Medium

Fig. 4 Effect of Re
D
on pressure distribution in the model
Distance, x (m)
0.00 .05 .10 .15 .20 .25 .30 .35 .40 .45 .50 .55 .60 .65
C
e
n
t
e
r
l
i
n
e

V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
,

V
m
a
x

(
m
/
s
)
.02
.03
.04
.05
.06
c = 0.4
c = 0.6
c = 0. 8
c = 1. 0
Re = 100, d
p
= 20mm
T
f
= 30
o
C
Porous Medium

Fig. 4 Effect of porosity on velocity distribution in the model