Analysis of variants within the porous media transport models

An investigation of variants within the porous media transport models is pr esented in this work. Four major categories in modeling the transport proce sses through porous media, namely constant porosity, variable porosity, the rmal dispersion, and local thermal nonequilibrium, are analyzed in detail. The main objective of the current study is to compare these variances in mo dels for each of the four categories and establish conditions leading to co nvergence or divergence among different models. To analyze the effects of v ariants within these transport models, a systematic reduction and sensitivi ty investigation for each of these four aspects is presented. The effects o f the Darcy number, inertia parameters, Reynolds number, porosity, particle diameter, and the fluid-to-solid conductivity ratio on the variances withi n each of the four areas are analyzed. It is shown that for some cases the variances within different models have a negligible effects on the results while for some cases the variations can become significant. In general, the variances have a more pronounced effect on the velocity field and a substa ntially smaller effect on the temperature field and Nusselt number distribu tion.