Theoretical Study of Heat Transfer through a Sun Space Filled with a Porous Medium

Abstract

A theoretical study had been conducted to detect the effect of using a porous medium in sunspace to reduce  heating  load  and  overcoming  coldness  of  winter  in  the  cold  regions.  In  this  work,  the  heat transferred and stored in the storage wall was investigated. The mathematical model was unsteady, heat conduction equation with nonlinear boundary conditions was solved by using finite difference method and the solution technique  of heat conduction had based  on the  Crank Nicholson method. The results had adopted  on  the  aspect  ratio  (H/L=30),  Darcy  number  (Da=10-3),  porosity  (φ=0.35)  and  particle  to  fluid thermal conductivity ratio (kp/kf=38.5). The results showed that using the porous medium had enhanced the heat transferred and stored in the storage wall. For   the outside storage wall temperature, an increase of 19.7%  was achieved by using the porous medium instead of the air, while it was 20.3%  for the inside storage wall temperature