Optimal arrangements of a heat sink partially filled with multilayered porous media employing hybrid nanofluid

Abstract

Although many studies have addressed the urge of exploring the porous media partially embedded in a channel due to its wide engineering applications, the heat transfer and fluid flow of a channel consisting of multilayered metal foam are relatively untouched. To tackle this research gap, a numerical study is conducted to analyze a channel partially filled with a three-layered porous medium—occupying sixty percent of a heat sink—over the Reynolds numbers ranging from 50 to 150 and water base fluid. To this aim, two configuration models of porous media are evaluated here: metal foam with (A) similar particle diameters (2 mm) and different porosities (0.75, 0.85, 0.95) and (B) similar porosities (0.88) and different particle diameters (1, 2, 3 mm). Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer and local thermal non-equilibrium methods are used to solve the momentum and energy equations in the porous region, respectively. The validity assessment of the local thermal equilibrium method elucidates that its accuracy is questionable at higher porosities and particle diameters of the metal foam—highlighting the necessity of incorporating the LTNE method under the mentioned circumstances. Among the considered geometries, the optimal arrangements of metal foam at both models are selected according to the performance evaluation criteria value.