The Role of Nonuniformity in Convective Heat and Mass Transfer through Porous Media,Part 2

Nonuniformities in porous materials can play a significant role in the convective and diffusive transport of fluid, heat, and mass. This study provides experimental results and corresponding numerical simulation results. The experiments report continuous data in transient test runs with measurements of temperature and velocity at distributed locations in the domain immediately downstream of the porous materials. An increasing degree of nonuniformity was found to produce a lower drying rate as well as an earlier onset of falling rate drying. The numerical model provides results of the effects of different nonhomogeneities such as distributed holes or distributed regions of varying permeability and moisture content. Comparisons between numerical and experimental test results indicate general agreement with differences with regard to details of the drying curve features. This provides a tool for studying the role of nonuniformity in fluid flow and heat and mass transfer in porous media.