Flow regimes and types of solid obstacle surface roughness in turbulent heat transfer inside periodic porous media

Abstract: The focus of this paper is to systematically study the influence of solid obstacle surface roughness in porous media on the microscale flow physics and report its effect on macroscale drag and Nusselt number. The Reynolds averaged flow field is numerically simulated for a flow through a periodic porous medium consisting of an in-line arrangement of square cylinders with square roughness particles on the cylinder surface. Two flow regimes are identified with respect to the surface roughness particle height: fine and coarse roughness regimes. The effect of the roughness particles in the fine roughness regime is limited to the near-wall boundary layer around the solid obstacle surface. In the coarse roughness regime, the roughness particles modify the microscale flow field in the entire pore space of the porous medium. In the fine roughness regime, the heat transfer from the rough solid obstacles to the fluid inside the porous medium is less than that from a smooth solid obstacle. In the coarse roughness regime, there is an enhancement in the heat transfer from the rough solid obstacle to the fluid inside the porous medium. Total drag reduction is also observed in the fine roughness regime for the smallest roughness particle height. The surface roughness particle spacing determines the fractional area of the solid obstacle surface covered by recirculating, reattached, and stagnating flow. As the roughness particle spacing increases, there are two competing factors for the heat transfer rate: increase due to more surface area covered by reattached flow, and decrease due to the decrease in the number of roughness particles on the solid obstacle surface. Decreasing the porosity and increasing the Reynolds number amplify the effect of the surface roughness on the microscale flow.