Non-Darcy natural convection in a hydrodynamically and thermally anisotropic porous medium

The natural convective flow and heat transfer in a fluid saturated anisotro pic porous medium have been investigated using the generalised non-Darcy mo del. A semi-implicit, Galerkin, velocity correction procedure has been empl oyed to solve the governing partial differential equations. Numerical resul ts are presented for different inclinations of the principal permeability d irections, Rayleigh and Dairy numbers and permeability and thermal conducti vity ratios. The comparison of present results with existing analytical and numerical results shows that present formulation is accurate. A parametric study has been carried out and the difference between the Brinkman and the generalised porous medium models in the context of anisotropic flow is dis cussed. Significant difference between these models is noticed at higher Ra yleigh and Darcy numbers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserve d.