Porous Media Flow
Model ID: 170
This model exemplifies the coupling between flow of a gas in an open channel and in a porous catalyst attached to one of the channel walls. The flow is described by the Navier-Stokes equation in the free region, and using the Brinkman equations in the porous region. The coupling of free media flow with porous media flow is very common in the field of chemical engineering. This type of problems arises in filtration and separation and in chemical reaction engineering, for example in modeling of porous catalysts in monolithic reactors. The most common way to deal with free and porous media flow in a system is to couple Darcy’s law, which does not account for viscous effects, with the Navier-Stokes equations. However, depending on the pore size distribution of the porous media and the fluid’s properties, it is not always appropriate to neglect viscous effects. The Brinkman equations account for momentum transport through viscous effects and through pressure gradients in porous media and can be considered an extension of Darcy's Law.
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The velocity field in the open channel and in the porous structure is shown in the Figure. In this plot, we can see that there are variations in velocity in the horizontal direction in the porous wall, which means that there is some momentum transport by viscous effects. The velocity is continuous across the interface between the open channel and the porous structure. |
