Natural Convection Flow of Micropolar Fluid Inside a Porous Square Conduit: Effects of Magnetic Field, Heat Generation/Absorption, and Thermal Radiation

The present study describes the effects of thermal radiation, heat generation/absorption, and magnetic field on free convection flow and heat transfer inside a porous square conduit filled with a micropolar fluid. The horizontal boundaries of the conduit are insulated whereas left and right boundaries are kept at a uniform temperature. The highly nonlinear partial differential equations are solved by the finite element method. The penalty method is used to eliminate the pressure term from momentum equations. The simulations are presented in the form of streamlines, temperature contours, and local heat transfer rate for suitable values of used physical parameters, namely, Prandtl number (Pr = 0.7), Rayleigh number (104 ≤ Ra ≤ 106), vortex viscosity parameter (0 ≤ K ≤ 4), Hartman number (0 ≤ Ha ≤ 100), Darcy parameter (10-5 ≤ Da ≤ 10-2), thermal radiation parameter (0 ≤ NR ≤ 5), and heat generation/absorption parameter (-5 ≤ ε ≤ 5). The results are also benchmarked with the previous published data in the literature.