| There are many systems of interest in engineering that involve heat transfer through a medium consisting of two or more distinct materials. Such a medium is often considered to be a porous medium when one of the materials is in solid phase and another material is in fluid phase. Some examples of a porous medium are the packed bed of a cooling tower, building insulation, and the core of a catalytic converter. In evaluating these systems and others of interest in engineering thermodynamics, heat transfer, or fluid mechanics, the effective thermal conductivity of a porous medium must first be evaluated. It is difficult to predict the thermal conductivity of a medium consisting of two or more separate materials.;There is no general model to predict the effective thermal conductivity of a porous medium. This paper proposes such a model starting with the two dimensional heat conduction equation. Finite differencing is employed to develop the numerical model. From this numerical model, a computer code is developed that predicts the effective thermal conductivity of a porous medium. |
