CREEPING FLOW PAST A SOLID SPHERE IN A POROUS-MEDIUM

This paper reports an analytical study of the creeping flow past a sol id sphere in an unbounded sparsely-packed porous medium assuming the v alidity of the Brinkman model. A closed form solution is obtained for the flow field and streamlines are drawn to demonstrate its evolution. No separation pour occurs near the rear stagnation point. In the case of low permeability media, there is an overshoot in Me tangential com ponent of velocity in the vicinity of the sphere and the total drag on the sphere is found to increase with a decrease in the value of the p ermeability parameter. Heat transfer due to this forced convection has been exemplified.