Numerical Study of Heat Transfer in Turbulent Cross-Flow Over Porous-Coated Cylinder

In the present paper, a numerical study has been conducted to investigate the heat transfer from a constant temperature cylinder covered with metal foam. The cylinder is placed horizontally and is subjected to a constant mean cross-flow in turbulent regime. The Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer equations are combined and used for flow analysis. The energy equation used assumes local thermal equilibrium between fluid and solid phases in porous media. The k-ω SST turbulence model is used to evaluate the eddy viscosity that is implemented in the momentum and energy equations. The flow in the metal foam (porous media) is in laminar regime. Governing equations are solved using the finite volume SIMPLEC algorithm. The effect of thermophysical properties of metal foam such as porosity and permeability on the Nusselt number is investigated. The results showed that using a metal porous layer with low porosity and high Darcy number in high Reynolds number turbulent flows markedly increases heat transfer rates. The corresponding increase in the Nusselt number is as high as 10 times that of a bare tube without the metal foam.