Natural Convection in an Annular Porous Medium: Effect of Brinkman Correction on the Bifurcation Point

Abstract

This work presents a numerical investigation of the natural convection in a saturated porous medium bounded by two horizontal concentric cylinders, modeled taking into account the Brinkman term. The governing equations (in the stream function and temperature formulation) were solved using the ADI (Alternating Direction Implicit) method. The results obtained for the bifurcation point are in a good agreement with the available published data forDa≈0. A study of the effect of Darcy number on the bifurcation point is conducted.