Shohel Mahmud¹ and Roydon Andrew Fraser²

^1,2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Tel. +1 519 888 4567; Fax +1 519 888 6197; E-mail: ¹ [email protected] , ² [email protected]

Received: 5 November 2002 / Accepted: 11 May 2003 / Published: 31 December 2003

Abstract: We investigate the nature of heat transfer and entropy generation for natural convection in a two-dimensional circular section enclosure. The enclosure is assumed to fill with porous media. The Darcy momentum equation is used to model the porous media. The full governing differential equations are simplified with the Boussinesq approximation and solved by a finite volume method. Whereas the Prandtl number Pr is fixed to 1.0. Results are presented in terms of Nusselt number, entropy generation number, and Bejan number.

Keywords: porous cavity; irreversibility; entropy generation; Bejan number; Nusselt number.