Natural convection in a confined fluid overlying a porous layer - a comparison study of different models (Q1346449)

This paper discribes a comparative study of the Darcy, Brinkman-extended Darcy and Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy models of free convection in a cavity containing a fluid layer overlying a porous layer saturated with the same fluid. The two-dimensional enclosure is heated on one vertical side and cooled on the opposite side, whilst the top and bottom sides are adiabatic. By solving the equations governing the system by an ADI method it was found that all three models yield very similar results for Darcy numbers up to about \(10^{-4}\). At higher Darcy numbers the Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy model is preferred as it accounts for the effects of inertia.