Numerical simulation of forced convective heat transfer in uniform and composite structured packed porous media with different particles

In the present paper, a forced convective heat transfer in uniform and composite structured packed porous media with spherical or ellipsoidal particles are numerically studied. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and RNG k-ε turbulence model with scalable wall function are adopted for the computations. The results of uniform and composite structured packed porous media are compared in detail, and the simulation results are also compared with the traditional correlations extracted from randomly packings. Firstly, it is found that, with proper selection of packing form and particle shape, the pressure drop in both uniform and composite structured packed porous media would be significantly reduced and the overall heat transfer performance would be improved. Secondly, compared with uniform packing, the heat transfer performance in the composite structured packed porous media could be further improved, but the pressure drops inside are also much higher. Therefore, its overall heat transfer efficiency would be higher.