NATURAL-CONVECTION IN A VERTICAL CYLINDER FILLED WITH ANISOTROPIC POROUS-MEDIA

A SIMPLE numerical algorithm is used to analyze the natural convection in a vertical cylindrical enclosure filled with a saturated anisotrop ic porous medium. The boundary conditions of the enclosure are assumed to be maintained at a uniform high temperature except that the temper ature of the bottom is low. The effects of anisotropic permeability ra tio, anisotropic thermal conductivity ratio, geometrical aspect ratio and Rayleigh number on the flow field and heat transfer are investigat ed. Numerical results show that the heat transfer rates of the side an d bottom walls increase, either decreasing the values of anisotropic p ermeability ratio or increasing the values of anisotropic thermal cond uctivity ratio, and the side average Nusselt number increases as the a spect ratio decreases.