Natural Convection in Heat Generating Oval Porous Enclosures: A Non‐Darcian Model

This paper presents a series of numerical simulations dealing with the problem of natural convection flows and associated heat transfer in an enclosure filled with a fluid‐saturated porous medium. The analysis is based on the finite element technique and incorporates the Brinkman‐extended Darcy model for an oval enclosure. The numerical results obtained for a modified Rayleigh number, Ra , Darcy number, Da , offset, E , and eccentricity, e , are presented and discussed. The numerical predictions for a square enclosure compared well with published data. It is found that any increase in Da or Ra results in a higher fluid velocity that is responsible for shifting the core of the flow. Moreover, at higher ovality ( E = 0.5), asymmetric flow is observed even at the lower range of Rayleigh number ( Ra ⩽ 20), which may be attributed to the effect of curved isothermal wall.