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Abstract

This work analyzes non-Darcy flow and heat transfer in a vertical slot filled with a porous matrix. The left and right vertical boundaries of the porous system are maintained at higher and lower temperatures, respectively. The horizontal boundaries are assumed to be impermeable and insulated. The vertical boundaries are either completely impermeable, where free convection is induced, or partially permeable in a way to simulate the wall leakage in the building materials, where both air infiltration and free convection exist. The non-Darcy model, which includes the Brinkman and Forchheimer extensions along with the convection terms, is employed to describe the flow in the porous medium. A control-volume-based finite difference scheme is developed to solve the pertinent governing equations along with the boundary conditions. The influence of the locations of the wall leakage is investigated in detail by examining several representative cases. The significance of the non-Darcian effects is shown clearly by comparing the results based on the non-Darcy model with that based on the Darcy model. The enhancement for the heat loss across the porous insulation due to infiltration was found to be case dependent for both Darcy and non-Darcy flows.

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